


If I Should Die

by casrial



Series: If I Should Die [1]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2012-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 46,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casrial/pseuds/casrial
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the war, Duo goes out looking for peace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue:  Before I Wake

**Author's Note:**

> This was initially posted at ff.net, and has since been polished somewhat. Thanks to Bronze_Tigress, my beta, for catching many of my mistakes; the ones that remain she cannot be held responsible for.

###    


Prologue: Before I Wake

  


Peace at last.

Duo let out a whoop of delight and threw open Deathscythe Hell's hatch almost before he remembered to shut the engines off. As the last of the power lights flickered off he was nearly to the ground, rappelling down in bounds from joint to joint down his gundam's legs, barely feeling the weight of the line as he descended and touched down lightly on the ground. "It's over!" he hollered, racing towards the crumpled form of Wing Zero. His short ponytail bounced as he ran. "We did it! War's over!"

Heero crawled out of the slightly-mangled Zero a few seconds before Duo tackled him. The force of the motion sent them both spinning dizzily, and Heero found himself bringing his hands up to steady Duo's hips where the other pilot was clinging to him. "Get off."

"Come on, you sourpuss!" Duo said with a laugh of delight. "We kicked ass!"

"Hn," was all Heero deigned to comment, but Duo saw the slight smirk of triumph threaten his dour demeanor.

Sandrock and Heavyarms landed nearby, and Duo sprang off Heero to spread the joy. Trowa, the first on the ground, was the next recipient of Duo's triumphant greeting; Duo ignored his confusion and hugged him anyway. "We won! No more war!"

"Yes," Trowa replied. His smile was much more visible than Heero's.

Quatre was moving a little more slowly to the ground, cupping a bloody side but still grinning. "Thank Allah it's over!"

Whooping with excitement, Duo let Trowa go--much to the shy boy's relief--and led Quatre in a manic parody of the tango. "Break out the champagne!" He dipped Quatre over Sandrock's foot. "There's gonna be a party tonight!"

As Trowa and Heero were very carefully not laughing at the ridiculous demonstration Quatre and Duo put on, Shenlong descended behind them, finally settling in the dust.

"Hurry up, pokey," Duo called, and spun his dance partner again.

"Duo, I'm getting dizzy," Quatre giggled giddily, letting the next exaggerated dance move find him seated on Sandrock's foot. Duo realized abruptly who he was holding and left him to sit. He grabbed Trowa for the next round of dancing, despite Trowa's protests. Even Quatre couldn't ruin the dusty taste of victory.

Finally, Meiran exited the hatch, gracefully springing down to the ground. "Stop screeching at me, Maxwell."

Duo spun away from Trowa to sweep her up and spin her around, dropping her feet-first on the ground when it became evident that she did not share his level of exuberance. "War's over, Mei!" he crowed.

"Yes, Maxwell, I am aware of that." Her smirk echoed Heero's. "The weak will always be defeated by the strong."

"No moralizing," he told her, shaking a chiding finger, and they joined the rest of the group. "Whaddya all say we party tonight?"

The response was an overwhelming affirmative. Well, Quatre was overwhelming, anyway.

* * *

Duo was running a few minutes late, as usual, so Meiran already had a table by the time he arrived, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"What did you want, Maxwell?" She stood as he joined her, a gesture of politeness left over from her traditional upbringing, and sat immediately after. Her napkin returned to her lap, and she lifted her glass of water to take a healthy drink.

"Good morning, Mei-mei!" Duo also took a drink of water, eyeing the folded napkin at his place as if it were alive. "Is this supposed to be some sort of animal or something?" He poked at the folds with his salad fork, looking for a pattern.

"Just pretend you're a civilized creature for once and put it in your lap, Maxwell." She did not look amused, and raised her menu, effectively blocking Duo's view of her face.

"What's the fun in that?" he asked with a wink, but snapped the napkin open and laid it on his lap.

Any further comments either may have had were cut off by the appearance of the waiter. After he'd taken their orders and made his exit, Meiran once again gave Duo a steady look. "Why did you ask me to lunch?"

"Can't a guy just ask his fellow ex-soldier to a celebratory meal without an ulterior motive?" He finished the water in his glass and smiled at her.

"No," was her calm reply.

"Mou," he pouted, "you're just like Heero sometimes. Sourpuss. Why can't you emulate me or, heck, Trowa? Even Q would be an improvement." He forestalled her growing ire with a raised hand. "I know, I know, if I don't get to the point within the next five seconds, you'll leave. I just wanted to know what you're doing now that the war's officially over."

She gave him a blank look. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, you know," he said, "Quatre's heading back to his big company and his family, Trowa's got the circus-which, you know, is like his family-Heero's shadowing Relena, who's been talking about *making* him family... heh, I wonder if he's going to stalk her like she did to him...? ...but no one knows what you're doing." He put his arms behind his head and stretched. "You know, now that there's no one left to beat up, how're you gonna figure out where to deliver that justice of yours?" He did not mention the destruction of L5, and with it, the last of Meiran's family; she felt absurdly relieved. But, of course, if there was one thing she had in common with Duo Maxwell, it was that they both understood loss all too well.

Meiran unfolded her hands from her lap and smoothed back a stray strand of hair. "If you must know, Colonel Une has discovered a plot led by that snake Dermail to bring back the authoritarian government. She decided to found an organization devoted to maintaining peace in order to deal with this and future potential threats."

"You're gonna work with Psycho-Bitch Une?" Duo said with a laugh. "Ms. Multiple Personality herself? No shit?"

"She, Sally Po, and I are co-founding it." There was a bit of a smirk on her face. "We decided it would be the best way to represent all sides in this oncoming era of peace. Une is handling the political aspect, Sally will supervise health issues and biological warfare, and I am taking care of internal policies. The Earth-Sphere Alliance has already agreed to sign a contract and give a rather sizeable grant. We are in the midst of negotiations now."

"No shit," Duo repeated softly. His gaze turned from his lunch companion's face to the window; it was a beautiful day outside, and people seemed to be determined to enjoy it and the new peace. "You guys already have that all worked out?"

"The fighting ended a few weeks ago, and the peace treaty was signed last week," Meiran pointed out. "There has been plenty of time." Duo didn't answer. "What will you do after the war?"

"Dunno," Duo said softly, still staring out the window. "I mean, I don't have any family or nothing, so that's out... no commitments... the only people I really know that well are you guys, and you've all got plans..." His lip twitched.

"Surely that floozy who followed you around during the war has extended an invitation of sorts." Hard to imagine that just a few weeks ago counted as "during the war;" it already seemed like an entirely different era. "You can't tell me that your own personal Relena has given you up."

Duo rolled his eyes. "She's not a floozy, Mei, she's an ex-soldier. And, yes, Hilde offered me a job in her junkyard, but..." He looked over at Meiran, who was staring at him not-quite-impassively. "Ever feel like you're missing something?"

Meiran lowered her eyes to the tablecloth in front of her. It was as white as her clothes. "No."

Duo nodded and looked back out the window. "Maybe I'll go back to school."

Meiran snorted.

"What?" he asked, offended. "I'm smart enough!"

"You lack discipline," she said. They waited for a tense moment while their food was placed in front of them.

"I was disciplined enough to save the world," he said, after they were alone again.

"You're unfocussed."

He scowled. "Well, I'll just have to focus, then, won't I?"

The sudden hostility in his voice surprised Meiran, and she paused with her fork poised over her plate. Duo paused, a forkful of potatoes in front of his closed mouth. His eyelids lowered slowly over the overly-intense glare, and when they re-opened he was calm and pleasant again.

She set her fork down slowly, the food on her plate untouched. "You're behaving strangely, Maxwell."

He took a big bite and grinned at her. "Weren't you the one who told me I was dropped on my head as a child?"

"You're confusing me with Yuy." She gave him another considering look before picking her fork up again and beginning her meal.

He was his cheery self throughout the rest of the meal, but Meiran remained strangely wary.

* * *

After lunch, Meiran only briefly considered going back to work with Une before she pulled out her cell phone and made her excuses. Instead, she headed over to one of the larger, more heavily-guarded warehouses scattered around the edge of the country--an hour's drive by the clock on her car stereo, which consistantly ran a little slow--and slipped past security with an ease that would have infuriated those in charge. Her target was one of the innermost hangers, filled with weapons that had been sealed away since the end of the war a few weeks ago. Keying in the code, she allowed the door to slide shut behind her as she fumbled a little for the light switch. Fluorescent lights flickered on around her, reaching to the back of the large room.

Shenlong looked strangely hollow under the artificial lighting; Meiran stared at her gundam, wondering where the spark of glory and life had gone. Was it just her imagination, or was there something final and abandoned about the mecha? She climbed up easily and seated herself on its shoulder, next to the giant head.

"I've paid my debt, Shenlong," she told it. Her voice rang a little in the bare room, and she continued at a softer level. "I've done my best to protect the honor of all the people who died for my sake, and all the people who died because of our bloody hands. I've rid us of this war. Pointless death will now end. Can you forgive me?"

Shenlong remained silent. The room felt like a tomb.

If she closed her eyes, she could see it: herself in that piece-of-crap Tallgeese, determined to protect the colony; that stupid scholar, running into the fray like the idiot he'd always been, his mecha unsealed, his safety gear on the ground in the hanger; the field of flowers afterward, where she'd laid his head down and watched him breathe his last breath. She could feel the dead weight of his head on her lap as his eyes slid closed that last time. She'd pushed him off and run back to O to prove her strength as Shenlong's true pilot, and every time she fought, she could feel his dead weight on her back, or in her arms, or lying on her thighs, pushing her on. Every time she fought Treize, she saw her scholar's blood on her hands, staining her clothes and the ground beneath them. She'd been furious; how dare he die like that? How dare he pity her while he was the one too weak to move? How dare he forgive her as he choked on his own blood?

She sighed and relaxed, laying a hand on the smooth guard on Shenlong's head. "It is time for me to move on. You have been avenged, Wufei."

His body was irrecoverable; she made a note to put up a grave maker on Earth so he would not be forgotten.

* * *

 _Now I lay me down to sleep,  
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.  
If I should die before I wake,  
I pray the Lord my soul to take._

-18th century children's bedtime prayer


	2. Forgive Us Our Tresspasses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after the end of the war, Duo still struggles to find his place.

Duo stared into his glass, contemplating the bread crumbs and poppy seeds on the bar through the amber filter of his drink. The little bubbles attached to the bottom of the glass shifted slightly, floating to the surface whenever someone smacked the bar top. God, this place was pathetic.

Behind him, a new fight was breaking out. Another bunch of ex-soldiers releasing pent-up aggression, trying to work their way through their issues. Well, fuck that. Everyone had issues. There was a crash and a pained cry of rage from behind him as the brawlers smashed into the pinball machine, mindless of the destruction they wreaked on bar property as they concentrated on destroying each other.

The bartender, an elderly man with twitchy thumbs, narrowed his eyes as he stared at the fighting men. "Soldiers," he muttered in disgust to Duo. "Someone should tell them the war's over already."

Really, Duo wondered. Where did this guy expect them all to go? What, that's it--fight the war, turn into animals because war sucks and you know it, and you're slaughtering other people who you'd probably get along with pretty well, had the chance arisen, and then just hop into a hole in the ground somewhere so that "normal people" could breathe easy? Create them, then lock 'em away. Duo twitched into his drink, skin tight. He twisted slightly to avoid a flailing arm as the brawlers moved away from the pinball machine. Another crash moments later revealed that they'd found a new place to fight on: the juke box. The current track, some maudlin post-war pop breakaway hit, skipped every time a body slammed into the juke box.

Since Duo could remember, he'd lived in a perpetual state of war. When he was small, it was him up against everyone else. Then, after Solo adopted him, it was the gang against the police and rival gangs. Then Solo'd fallen casualty to the war against disease, and Duo'd been back to just himself against everyone else. Father Maxwell's Church had been nice, until Oz had blown it to smithereens, and then he'd been back on the streets until G'd given him the option of fighting a war against people he'd never seen. It'd been a nice change of pace at the time. Made him feel a little more in control.

So, what to do now? He'd fought for peace--almost gave his life for it on several occasions--and now that he'd had it for two years running, he was still completely unprepared for the abrupt change. And people everywhere were increasingly unwelcoming and unhelpful as they adapted to non-wartime conditions. The police arresting the men behind him--would they try to fix what the government had created when it fucked with their heads? Hell, no. And the children who'd grown up with nothing but war--how were they supposed to live in a time of peace? Look what you've created, world, and enjoy the hell out of it, Duo thought spitefully, and downed the rest of his drink. His mouth twisted at the taste, but he put threw some money on the counter, pushed his arms through the sleeves of his jacket, and strolled out the door past the police reading the brawlers their rights and into the night street.

He was driving himself crazy. It began to rain, very gently, and Duo trudged through the puddles on the sidewalks, feeling water drip down the back of his neck. He'd cut his hair again last week; even he knew it was a bizarre ritual to continue, especially considering the pain and loss he felt every time he looked up to see his braid gone. In some sick, twisted way he enjoyed the ache: he thought of himself, and he thought of Quatre, and he smiled through the pain.

Now, after the war, there was nothing he could do; with his background, was he qualified for any sort of work? He'd done a little salvage work with Hilde, once, but fighting was all he really knew--well, except for stealing, sabotage, and stealth, but those weren't good traits to advertise while the government was still suspicious of potential terrorists--and yet, when he thought about it, it was all he really hated. He had no illusions of war and how hard it had been, unlike some ex-soldiers he'd met. He'd been wandering around the world for over two years now, looking for the answers.

At first, he was optimistic. People were generally good and forgiving, and open minded towards strangers, right? He had his GED; he'd taken the tests shortly after the end of the war and scored high enough that Meiran asked him if he'd cheated (he hadn't), or if he'd hacked in and changed the numbers (he hadn't), or, if neither of those, he had pretended to be a world class idiot to make everyone underestimate him (he hadn't done that, either, but he let her believe it because it sounded better than her other theories). With basic education out of the way, he'd set off to see the world in all its glory. All he had found, however, was that there was no glory in human beings. Oz soldiers and the Rebellion soldiers were openly hostile. The poverty-stricken areas hadn't seen any change from war time to peace time. People were suspicious of their neighbors. Discontent ruled.

Some soldiers were too conditioned by the long period of stress to do anything but fight. There was no place for them in society. There was no acceptance for them. There was no tolerance for them. They were picked up and dragged away in the night. They were charged with disturbing the peace. They were shunned, and provoked, and thrown away, and they fought every bit of it.

He paused at the door to his room, searching through his pockets until he extracted the key from underneath the scarf wedged in on top. The door opened with a creak, and he turned on the lights as he entered. He bolted the door shut after him, using both chains to further secure it--you could never be too careful in a neighborhood like this--and turned to face the room. Grimacing at the coldness of the room's air on his damp skin, he nevertheless tossed his coat on the worn chair and sat down on the old bed. The faded, pilling bedspread was too thin at night, but he'd slept in less comfortable places. Duo dug into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out the flyer he'd pulled off the telephone pole a few weeks ago. It was no longer clean and crisp, but the worn folds creasing the paper didn't obscure the message. He had it memorized, anyway.

"Tired of the tyrannical government's endless promises? What has Peacecraft done for you? Soldiers dedicated to truth and honor sought for good cause." A rally date and address was printed below. In smaller print at the bottom, the message, "Fight for your rights, not for someone else," was italicized and underlined twice.

During the war, he'd been so sure that all he wanted was peace, that all he wanted was to be left alone. Now that it was here, however, he couldn't enjoy it. It seemed... cheap, somehow, and a bit anticlimactic. This was what he'd bled for, struggled with every breath for? This was why Sister Helen had died? Ex-soldiers from both sides found themselves struggling to make ends meet. It was impossible to find a job, or a home, or a place in society.

It was tempting. Join another cause, Duo, a voice in his mind whispered. _You're drowning in this stupid peace time: you and hundreds of thousands of others. Get off your ass and stand up. There's work to be done._

 _I'm tired of fighting,_ he told himself, and almost believed it. _I'm tired of death._

 _But I am the Shinigami. What else is there?_

Duo stared at the flyer, watching as the border and text blurred in front of his eyes. There had to be something...

In a burst of color that caught his breath, he remembered the feel of cold steel, rough iron at his back, heavy munitions in his hands, Quatre at his side, and stuffed that memory back down to the hell it came from. The smell of melting flesh stuck in his nose, and he wiped his sleeve across his face to bring himself back to the present.

"I was made to save," Duo said aloud into the silence of the room, and a police siren floated in, distant. He crumpled the flyer with one hand and chucked it into the corner of the room. He was... he lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

Killing, saving. It's all the same. You kill one to save another. You save one who kills another. You kill someone to survive another hour. It's part of the eternal life cycle. He had a gift for death.

Duo's throat tightened. He didn't want a talent for death. _Maybe I'm not meant to live in this world. Maybe I was supposed to die in the war._

As soon as he thought it, he was both fascinated and ashamed. What would Father Maxwell say if he were here? Duo couldn't even picture it. But still, the idea turned over and over in his mind: was he good for anything that wasn't destruction? Even Heero, born and bred and raised for war, found peace. The front page of that morning's newspaper was mostly taken up by the picture of Heero Yuy and Relena Peacecraft announcing their engagement.

 _God,_ Duo thought in what was almost a prayer, _I miss death._

"I don't!" he whispered out loud. His voice was harsh in the silence of the room, against the dull pattering of the rain outside his window. He closed his eyes, shutting out the flickering ceiling light. "I don't miss it at all."

 _But would anyone miss me, if I should die in this room here? No one would even notice._ The whole line of thinking chilled him. _I need something. I need to do something important. I need to... I need..._ He opened his eyes, slowly. _I can't give up on war. It's in my blood. I am the fight._

As he'd learned, there was more than one way to fight.

He'd always, since the plague on L-2 that had killed Solo and his gang, toyed with the idea of becoming a doctor, and after the Delta Vega--well, it only seemed fair. _I have debts to pay, and what better way to pay than continuing education._ The black humor of the thought brought traces of a smile to Duo's face. The tests for his GED had been absurdly simple compared to what he'd had to do as a gundam pilot. College would be... well, it would be a change. Duo needed to change, at least for a little while.

* * *

The next day, Duo pulled out his laptop and filled out online applications to a dozen respectable universities. Eight of them were on Earth, two were on the Moon, and two were on L-4. He was pretty sure he wanted to leave Earth; attitudes were generally hostile towards colonists, and he'd had more than enough hostility to last him a life time. He missed the constant hum of machinery on the colonies, the taste of the air, and the distance from the firm hand of Earth. Since the end of the war, however, many of the colonies were still struggling to rebuild. It wasn't exactly a promising future.

He got a part time job in the florist's shop down the street to pass the time; Duo could live comfortably for the rest of his life on the money he'd made off OZ during the war. He took some standardized tests. He bought dishes. He received his acceptance letters. He bought new clothes. His final choice, Tienen University on L-4--chosen because of their good pre-med program, large student body, and reputation for having a rather eclectic art collection--informed him of the orientation dates, and he packed his meager belongings and headed off to school. He left the dishes behind in a dirty hotel room.

It all passed in a blur until he set his bags down on his bunk, turned around, and realized he was actually here. Duo sat in the uncomfortable desk chair and stared at the neutral walls, suddenly unsure about his plans. Could he just forget about the problems back on Earth? Could he ignore everything he'd learned these past two years on his own, wandering the planet and feeling sickened by its intolerance? Could he transcend this person he'd become, and finally find some sort of peace with his own demons?

If he forgot about the plight of the soldiers, who would remember? Who will fight if I don't? Which children are next on the chopping block?

"Dude, are you just going to sit there?" A young man with a large box - his roommate, he presumed - was attempting to fit through the doorway.

"Sorry," Duo said, pulling himself to his feet and assisting the other with the box; once guided on both sides, it was relatively easy to get it into the room.

The other guy held out his hand. "Jordan Keevly," he said, shaking Duo's hand. He had a young face, despite the beard and sideburns. "Sorry about snapping; it was a little heavy."

"It's okay." Duo felt an old mask settle down over his face as he shook hands with his new roommate, and outwardly relaxed. "Duo Maxwell." Inside, he felt like his emotions were sloshing back and forth uncomfortably in his stomach.

Jordan glanced back to Duo's bed. Two duffles, a box, and his backpack, most of it had been bought for the express purpose of bringing to school. Duo never had learned how to accumulate stuff. "Is that all you brought?"

Duo nodded and laughed. "Yeah, I packed a little light."

"Good think I packed heavy, huh?" Jordan grinned and clapped Duo on the back. "I'm going out for another load."

As of yet, Duo didn't hate his roommate. He took that as a good sign. "Wait up," Duo said. "I'll help."

* * *

Chang Meiran settled down at her desk and looked over the report Une had given her. After a moment, she turned to where her friend sat on the corner of her desk trying not to smirk. "Where did you get these figures?"

"They're accurate," Une said mildly, folding her hands in her lap. The twitch at the corner of her lips was the only sign that she was desperately fighting a smile.

"This is incredible." Meiran looked back at the numbers, then again at Une. "This many new Preventers recruits is... is... it's incredible."

"I do believe you're speechless," Une drawled. With her glasses off, she looked much closer to her real age.

"I... I suppose I am." Meiran circled the numbers with a red pen, then underlined them, and finally highlighted them in bright yellow. "This many college graduates?"

"I win!" Une called towards Sally's office next door. "She's speechless."

Meiran shook her head. "Do they realize what we're offering to pay them?"

Sally appeared at the doorway, mock-scowling. "Alright, I'll buy dinner."

Meiran raised an eyebrow.

"Sally thought you'd want to double check," Une explained.

"I - I do," Meiran said. "But - this is amazing!"

Sally laughed, sounding, for the first time since they'd founded the Preventers, relaxed. "If I'm buying, we're leaving now. Tonight's a celebration!"

"For more than one reason," Meiran agreed, getting up and allowing Une to hand her her coat. "Heero and Relena picked a date."

"So soon?" Sally asked. "They just announced their engagement a few months ago."

Meiran smirked. "The seventh of January, next year."

"Next year?" Une's eyebrows rose and she turned out the lights, ushering Meiran out the door before she closed it. "That is soon."

"All we need to do," Meiran said with a sigh, her spirits sinking a little, "is find Maxwell."

"Still no word from him?" Sally frowned and pushed the button for the elevator. "Do you think he's in trouble?"

"Maxwell is always in trouble." Meiran quickly turned the security alarm on, joining her colleagues in the elevator.

"It does seem a little odd that you haven't even heard from him." The elevator dinged as the doors opened, and they stepped inside. "Maxwell was never one to leave things alone. Speaking as someone who fought against him, that was one of his more irritating qualities."

Meiran smirked. "Speaking as one who fought on his side, it was most definitely one of his more irritating qualities." The women laughed, exiting the elevator into the lobby of the building and calling goodnight to the security guards.

"Seriously, though," Sally said as they pushed through the heavy glass doors into the chilly night air and began the walk to their favorite bar. "Aren't you worried?"

"About Maxwell?" Meiran shook her head. "Heero and Relena are hunting around. They want to invite him to the wedding. But we know Maxwell can take care of himself."

"He was very good at it," Sally admitted, wrapping her scarf around her neck once more against the biting wind.

"He always seemed so lonely to me." Une buried her hands deep in her pockets. "Especially towards the end of the war."

"It was hard on all of us," Meiran said, and they reached the entrance to the bar. "But enough about the war. Tonight, we celebrate Sally's newfound generosity."

"Here, here!" Une grinned and opened the door for her friends.

"I didn't say I'd pay for both of you," Sally griped.


	3. Sublimation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There were so many ways he wanted to paint Tienen-U red.

Duo hated L-4. He often wondered precisely why he'd decided to come here: of all the schools in all the colonies, why here? Why this one? L-4 was creepy, with their obsession with perfection, laws, rules, order. Plus, genetically engineered babies, grown in test tubes so women didn't even have to sacrifice order for pregnancy. Duo felt perversely angry and obstinate at the very idea of so much emphasis on fake perfection. The longer he stayed at Tienen, the more stifled he felt. It's a dirty, disgusting world, he thought, and kicked a piece of broken glass across the street.

A cleanbot, attracted by the noise, whirred over and scraped the glass into its bin. It beeped an affirmative and scooted off to another piece of litter in the distance.

Dirty and disgusting, Duo thought again. Just in different ways.

* * *

Duo stood in his boxers, dripping and shivering in front of the token machine as it spit his creds out again, whirring spitefully. Slowly and purposefully, he fed the dripping card in again, watching as it whirred for a moment and spit it back out. "Just take the fucking creds," he hissed, two seconds from tearing it from the wall.

"It's broken," a male voice said from behind him. "It's always broken."

After taking three calming breaths that failed to calm him, Duo counted slowly to ten. "Fuck." His headache was getting worse and he was still cold, despite the ungodly warmth of the laundry room. A few girls passed in the hallway, giggling and whispering at the sight of him, still shivering and nearly naked, and he felt something inside him give slightly but not quite snap, under its maximum amount of pressure. "Why do they put the damn machine here if they're never going to fix it?"

"I have often wondered the same thing." The voice, pleasantly midrange, was slightly accented, and tinged with sympathy and dry humor. "I have extra laundry tokens, if you wish. I would be more than willing to share."

The raging explosion he'd felt building behind his eyes and in his fist lessened somewhat, and his cheerful mask settled more comfortably onto his face. In control again, Duo turned around and looked at the other boy for the first time. Short, Asian, athletic. Glasses. Stub of a ponytail. A contradiction. "You," he said clearly, meaning every word, "are a god."

"I know." His benefactor pulled out a glass jar full of tokens and handed Duo enough for the washer and dryer, refusing the limp, scraggly Earth dollar Duo pulled from the pocket of his jeans. Even this long after the end of the war, Earth money wasn't worth anything out in the colonies. "Is that enough?"

"It's perfect, thanks." He stuffed his clothes and sheets in the machine, poured detergent over the load, inserted his tokens, and pressed the start button.

"You're not going to separate the lights and the darks?" the guy asked.

"Why would I want to do something like that?" Duo eyed him suspiciously.

His benefactor shook his head; a few strands of black, shiny hair slipped from his ponytail and fell in front of his ear. "Well, it keeps the whites whiter, for one..."

Duo rolled his eyes. "As long as they smell better, I don't care how fucking white they are."

The other guy laughed and glanced over at the dryers as the buzzer sounded, removing his glasses and setting them on the counter next to his open text book. He began taking the laundry out of the dryer one article at a time, folding his clothes neatly.

Duo sighed and told himself to play nice. "I owe you one."

He smirked and tossed Duo a set of sweats warm from the dryer. "You can owe me two."

Duo pulled on the pants and sweatshirt; they were a little small, but they were soft and smelled clean, and he was much more comfortable. His anger subsided a little more as warmth returned to his skin, and he smiled. "Duo Maxwell."

The other guy smiled back. "Chang Wufei."

Chang. Duo studied him for a moment. He looked a bit like Meiran--although that could have been just the whole Asian thing they had going on. They could be family, but since the destruction of the Dragon Clan of L-5 had blown to smithereens any family Meiran had, it was unlikely that they were related. "Chang" was probably the Chinese version of "Smith" or "Jones." Besides, Wufei was taller, more muscular, and... smiling.

Yep, definitely not related.

"Don't you live in Fifth East?" Duo asked.

Wufei was still smiling, just a small, humor-filled smile. "Yes, in room 578."

"That's right across from me." The second the words came out of his mouth, Duo felt like an idiot. "Heh. Guess I'm not very observant, huh?"

Wufei finished folding his clothes and set the basket on the counter, nodding to the "out of order" sign on the wall next to the token machine. "Rough day?"

Duo flushed and tugged at the too-short sleeves of Wufei's sweatshirt. "The printer in the library isn't working, my computer's on the fritz, Doc Levin chewed my ass about a paper he thinks I plagiarized, I nearly got hit by a car that was fucking running a red light, I slipped in the mud and fell in Sigma Chi's stupid wading pool, and I have a bio test tomorrow at eight-fucking-AM and the prof won't tell us what's gonna be on it. And because I waited until the last minute to do laundry and then got all wet and muddy, *all* my clothes are in the wash, and the machine wouldn't take my fucking money, and... I've had better." His hands curled into fists, the only physical sign that he was close to losing his temper again.

Wufei winced sympathetically. "Your week sounds like mine." He nodded towards one of the washers. "Today, my roommate left his drunken girlfriend in our room and she vomited in my dresser."

Duo made a face. "I can't believe all the dick-heads out there." He rolled his eyes. "You seem to be pretty cool about the whole barfing thing."

Wufei nodded, a dry smile on his face. "It took about half an hour of meditation, but I did calm down enough to call her friends to take her home."

"Neat trick."

"Tai Chi."

Duo could believe it. Wufei certainly had the body of a martial artist. "Do you think it works on Biology?"

Wufei shook his head. "I've tried." Then his face brightened. "Bio 102 with Cavell, right? I've seen you around."

And again, Duo was embarrassed; he certainly would've noticed Wufei if his observational skills were still working like they had during the war. The last time he'd felt so dumb had been during a conversation with Meiran. "We've had the same class for how many weeks, now?" Duo felt a strange grin settle on his face, and he fought against another wave of hostility. Wufei had been perfectly friendly so far, and Duo didn't have so many friends that he could afford to pick fights with kind strangers. "We should study together." He meant to say it in a detached way, but Wufei's clothes were suddenly hot against his skin, and he ended up offering a weak smile.

Wufei's answering look was nothing but kind, and he put his glasses on and picked up the text book. "We have some time before the laundry is done. Shall we begin with mitosis?"

It was too late to back out now; Duo resigned himself to a long and boring study session and mentally checked it off as payment for the clothes he'd borrowed. Wufei settled on the counter, crossing his legs and resting the book in his lap, waiting patiently. Duo reluctantly hopped up next to him and drew one knee up to his chest to lean on it. "I think we'd better."

Something in Wufei's voice, deep and soothing, stirred some deep hurt. Duo ignored it, focusing on the gentle whirring of the washers and the thumping of the dryers, and the terribly monotonous rote memorization required for the test.

* * *

Two weeks later found them sprawled out across the floor in Wufei's room, surrounded by both of their open text books, class notes, lab notes, and various selections from the course pack.

"I hate this," Wufei said finally, throwing his pencil on the floor. "It just doesn't make any sense."

Duo pushed his bangs away from his eyes. "This lab is impossible. It's fucking insane that she expects us to get this all done. What, she doesn't realize that we have four other classes?"

"It is a lot of work for an intro class." Wufei removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "It's too much memorizing."

Duo stared at the book gloomily for a moment, finally knocking it to the side with his hand and scattering the papers. "Okay, we're done for the night."

"But Duo, it's only-" he looked at the clock, "ten."

"Ten-twenty-three," Duo corrected, and dragged Wufei to his feet. "Come on, Chang. Let's go paint this dead-ass colony red."

"Why would we want to paint it red?" Wufei asked as Duo pulled him out the door.

Despite Duo's desire to go out into town, they ended up staying in and playing pool. They were the only two people in the rec room; on a Friday night, most of the other students were likely at the frat parties, guzzling down the free beer. Duo didn't think much of beer, and the good stuff-hard liquor-was saved for the dumb freshmen girls with "easy fuck" tattooed across their pretty foreheads.

Wufei leaned over, lining up his shot, and Duo found himself admiring Wufei's form. And his ass.

Good lord. Wufei's ass.

It was a nice ass, to be sure, and completely worthy of admiration, but it hit Duo in mid-ponder that his friend Wufei--his very male friend Wufei--had a nice ass, and that he, Duo, had noticed, and that he was probably not quite as straight as he'd thought he was.

Duo had slept with women before--a few during the war, and a few more back on Earth, after the war--but he'd never touched another man. Not sexually. He'd never thought about it before--not in strictly self-analytical terms, anyway, the way his contemplation of Wufei's ass was suddenly forcing him to--but he did notice those things that you notice about a person you'd like to sleep with, and not just with women either, and God, why had it never occurred to him that when Trowa was practicing acrobatics, it hadn't been the tightness of his jumps Duo'd been checking out?

Duo followed the line of Wufei's neck as it emerged from his shirt and became hidden at his hairline: smooth skin, creamy and tan and strong and Duo told himself he wasn't really checking Wufei out, he was just noticing. There was nothing wrong with noticing. It was what he had been trained to do. And as Wufei stretched over the table, the hem of his shirt rose over where his jeans rested, and Duo could see a hint of Wufei's back, strong and--

Wufei cursed softly and stood back up. Duo felt obscenely relieved and nervous, all at once--maybe Wufei knew what he was thinking. Maybe Wufei could feel the eyes boring into his ass. (God! "Boring into his ass?" Duo fought a blush.) This wasn't some unobservant Joe, it was Chang Wufei of the Mysterious Everything, Bio Study Buddy. Hall mate. Amigo.

Duo tensed, but Wufei walked over to the other side of the table and pulled the cue ball out of the corner pocket. "Scratch." His tone was rueful, and Duo only caught the ball out of reflex when Wufei tossed it to him.

"Your turn."

Duo's mask was back up, luckily, and he was able to reply casually. "Thought you were going to clear the table all by yourself."

Wufei rolled his eyes. "Asshole." But it was fondly said.

"Yeah," Duo said, and lined up his next shot. "Yeah, I know. Red stripy one in the corner pocket."

* * *

The next day found Duo beating the shit out of a preppy tight-ass freak who'd tripped him in the cafeteria. The kid hadn't apologized or pretended to notice. Duo found great satisfaction in the fight, and, waiting in a room in the Campus Safety office, felt some sluggish instinct rouse itself. He didn't feel good, necessarily, but somehow it was right.

Comfortable.

Safe.

Campus Safety let them off with a warning and a lecture on the evils of primitive macho displays of testosterone; Duo could see them chalking their fight up to youth and temporary post-war madness, but he knew why he'd fought.

Sub-li-ma-tion. He knew how to spell it. There were so many ways he wanted to paint Tienen-U red.

* * *

His fourth fight after that was held outside the Natural Sciences complex with one of the athletics majors, ostensibly over Duo's attitude towards the guy's girlfriend. Duo circled the guy carefully, keeping an eye out for said girlfriend, who looked like she would pummel him to the consistency of oatmeal if he won. The fight wasn't quite as exhilarating as the last few-maybe a result of the monotony, maybe boredom-but he let himself feel grounded and cool: he was an ex-Gundam pilot who'd regularly fought and kicked ass next to Heero Yuy, the best ass-kicker Duo'd ever known; he was the sole survivor of his gang back on L-2; he'd lived through things in the war that he hadn't wanted to. He wasn't going to let a dumb jock and his girlfriend take him down.

But God, was he tired of fighting.

Duo launched himself at the guy. His speed was his greatest strength--always had been, even in Deathscythe--and he utilized it fully, ducking under the guy's arm and getting in a few good hits before slipping back out of range. Duo wasn't as muscular as he'd been once, but he'd managed to keep somewhat in shape; the jock, skilled enough, was over-matched, and Duo toyed with him, goading him.

"Come on, you asshole! Or should I just take on your girlfriend?"

"Rick, for God's sake, just let him go!" She sounded more impatient than concerned.

Rick growled, swiping at Duo and getting a good hit on his nose. "Sharon, stay out of it."

"Just walk me to class, Rick." It was a warning to both of them.

Duo popped Rick in the mouth while he was distracted. Rick cried out in surprise, hands rising to cup his face while Duo hit him again and finished it by sweeping Rick's legs out from under him.

"That's enough," a cold voice said from the building's entrance.

Duo wiped his bloody face on his arm, obediently stepping back from the body. He watched Rick stare up at him with an expression that was both incredulous and malicious, and felt a small twinge of satisfaction. He allowed a smirk, but wished he could keep hitting him without Professor Cavell glaring at him only a few feet away--and Cavell really _could_ kick his ass.

"Mr. Maxwell," she said, holding the door open with a cool look. "I'd like to have a word with you in my office."

Without a word, Duo scooped up his backpack and followed.

Professor Cavell's office was cluttered and messy. Books were piled everywhere, with stacks of miscellaneous papers and tablets--both student assignments and not--strewn about the floor, table, and desk. The small couch was covered with more books and strange artifacts; Duo wondered when someone had last sat there. Two of the three chairs were useable, and Professor Cavell settled herself in the padded one by the desk.

Duo relaxed into the other, slouching in his seat. "What can I do for you, Teach?" Unobtrusively, he wiped his hand across his nose; the bleeding had stopped.

"I can't help but notice, Mr. Maxwell, that you have been rather overly assertive lately, especially in class. I've seen your downright nasty attitude towards your classmates, and this fight makes me wonder if you know what the hell you're doing." She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him through her glasses; she was almost more intimidating than some of the Oz officers Duo had encountered.

"Well, Doctor," he drawled, putting his hands behind his head, "I'm just a helpless example of the violence inherent in the system."

"You're going to be an example of the violence outside of the system if you don't get it together," she bit out, and turned, shuffling through a pile of papers while she continued to talk to him. "What are you here for?"

"Oh, Doc, why are any of us here?" he asked, studying the ceiling. "When's the last time this office was painted? Your paint's chipping something terrible."

"I meant, what are you here to study?" She pushed her bangs away from her eyes. "You're pre-med, correct?"

He nodded, still comfortably relaxed in the chair, and put his feet up on a stack of books.

"You might as well stop coming to class. There's no way you can become a doctor. I don't see any reason why you should waste your money here."

He looked up at her, incredulous, and sat up in his seat, putting his arms down. "That's such bullshit!"

Dr. Cavell finally pulled his latest lab report out of the pile. "Duo Maxwell. Your grades are superior. You're extremely intelligent. You simply don't have the character. You are consistently cruel. You deliberately go out of your way to cause others pain." She put the papers down and removed her glasses. "Mr. Maxwell, you don't have a doctor's temperament."

"I-" Duo began, finding himself strangely at a loss.

"Do you know the Hippocratic Oath?" she asked him, voice still hard.

"The Hypocritical Oath?"

"The Hippocratic Oath," she answered, and softened a little. "'I will prescribe regimen for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment, and will never do harm to anyone.' Mr. Maxwell, all I've seen you do is harm others."

 _The Shinigami is a destroyer of worlds._

It hit him like a cold wave. He crossed his arms and shifted against the hard plastic of the chair. "You don't know what the fuck you're talking about," he told her stiffly. His hands felt suddenly numb, and something inside him began to shake. He kept himself steady, distant. Tried for detached and bored, but felt himself fall short. "You don't know me."

"The war was a difficult time, Duo," she said quietly, "but it ended two years ago. You have to move on."

I'm trying, he almost said, and bit his lip. The war isn't over for me, he almost said, but the words stuck behind his clenched jaw. He couldn't think of anything else to say, and he didn't think he could speak around the sudden lump in his throat.

"If you need to talk, my door is open," Dr. Cavell said, and sighed. "If I catch you fighting again, I'll report you to the police and recommend you for expulsion. Think on that."

"Okay," he said, feeling abnormally reserved, and took it for the dismissal it was.

As he walked back, bag slung over his shoulder, he wanted to be angry at Cavell. She didn't understand him. She didn't know how it was. She didn't know what it was like.

And then he remembered lying on his bed in the dingy hotel, knowing that the only thing he was good at was destruction and death and refusing to accept it.

And then he wondered if he'd really changed as much as he thought he had.

* * *

It took Duo a while to fall asleep; when he did, his dreams were half-memories from the war, dark and perverted. He dreamed about Treize, and Zechs, and Noin; he dreamed about the chamber where they'd cut off the air, except this time he was alone; he dreamed about the smell of burnt ozone, bullet through his thigh and blood seeping from him, and the screams as Q pushed him through the Delta Vega; he dreamed about the desperation and despair of being left stranded in enemy territory in space, short on air and injured; he dreamed about killing a family.

When he woke, still shaking and pale, he put on his shower sandals and headed for the bathroom. On the way back, he noticed Wufei heading down the hallway and, rather than brave sleep again, decided to follow. They made their way to the large common area, deserted at this time of night, and Duo watched from behind the door as Wufei took off his shoes and sweatshirt, leaving only baggy sweatpants and a tank top. Wufei cleared the furniture from the middle of the room, centered himself, and began the first fluid movements of his kata.

Duo gave him some privacy for a few minutes, but finally slipped into the room and sat down on the floor, against the wall. Wufei acknowledged him briefly with a nod of his head, and Duo just watched.


	4. Primum Non Nocere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duo goes to bars, briefly.

Duo went to bars. He didn't particularly like bars--too smoky, too full of drunk people, too pricey with the vodka--but he went to them anyway, mainly to pick up chicks. He didn't particularly like chicks, he was learning, but he picked them up just the same. Picking up chicks beat the alternative--which was unthinkable, so he didn't think about it.

The Fuck of the Night was looking to be the cute dumb blond in the corner, complete with legs and a nice rack. A very nice rack, stuffed into a very nice shirt. He glanced over from his spot at the bar; she was still over there, laughing giddily with some guy with a goatee, but he had a feeling she'd drop the Goatee in a heartbeat when Duo returned with the promised shots.

Duo winced as the karaoke machine in the corner began playing a newer pop love ballad, and a few of his drunken college compatriots climbed up on the pool table with the microphone and began warbling along in a bad falsetto. They sounded horrendous, but the rest of their group cheered like they'd paid for this performance; Duo decided he'd need another drink or three before it began to even slightly resemble music. And, if the bartender would step up the pace a little, he could have 'em, too.

One thing he could say about Tienen-U folk: they certainly knew how to drink.

"Hey," a deep voice purred.

Duo glanced at the man, took in his "come-hither" stance and his tight mesh shirt and fuck-me leather pants. Hell.

"What are you doing tonight, sailor?" The man leaned against a nearby post with a sultry smirk, flipping his blond hair over his shoulder.

Duo looked over at the girl with the rack.

The guy seemed to sense Duo's conflict and leaned forward to whisper in his ear. "Come on, just a quickie. My ass is hotter than hers."

Duo tilted his head. Took a considering glance. It was true. Very true. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, it compared unfavorably to Wufei's ass; he put that thought away.

"My name is Todd," the guy said, and licked his lips. "I'm not asking to bear your children, here."

Duo imagined the feel of Todd's body pressed up against his, hard planes with the softness of his thighs locked around him and those teeth grazing his neck as Duo pounded into him. He looked at Todd's curly hair-tried to figure out what it would feel like to card his fingers through it. Wondered what his lips would feel like. Wondered what it would be like to screw him out in the alley, pressed up against the brick wall, standing next to the dumpster, hearing the broken glass on the ground grind under his shoes as they fucked.

Duo was intoxicated.

"Not my thing," he told Todd casually. "Sorry."

Todd was still leaning into his space, uncomfortably close; Duo felt the warm rush of breath on his ear every time the other man exhaled.

"Liar," Todd whispered, and, despite the noise of the bar, his voice rang more clearly than anything else.

Duo wondered what it would feel like to pull Wufei close, to be pressed against him.

"You caught me," Duo agreed, just as quietly, and laid his hand on Todd's waist, cupping it. Felt the way the man's stomach didn't curve quite like a woman's. It gave him a rush.

Todd didn't say anything after that, just gave him a quick nod and a sly look and took Duo's hand from his waist, pulling him around the throngs of people cheering as the karaoke singers began a drunken strip version of the chicken dance.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen, he silently acknowledged to himself as he followed Todd out the back door into the alley.

* * *

  
After his encounter with Todd, Duo stopped going to bars and picking up chicks-stopped going to bars, in fact.

He told himself he couldn't afford the cheap booze.

* * *

  
Duo's very early hours were plagued with nightmares.

It was the same old, same old shit he always dreamed about: the war, death, slaughter, etc., etc., plus one amazingly vivid picture of a small boy with dark, tousled hair standing in the ruins of his front yard on a blood-spattered sidewalk, half a sandwich clenched in his hand as he looked up at Duo. He woke with a gasp into sudden alertness, as usual. His roommate, Jordan, slept through it all (the lucky bastard), and Duo checked his clock.

Six o'clock, which meant Duo had a good half an hour before Wufei was up and doing his kata in the common room. The boy with the sandwich flashed through his mind again, and he slipped his sandals on and quietly slipped out of his room and down the hall to wait. He turned the lights on and moved the furniture for Wufei, finally sitting in the semi-comfortable chair and pulling his legs up after him.

Waiting.

He came here almost every day--as often as the nightmares woke him. Every morning, without fail, Wufei was up and doing his morning workout. There was something nice about it--dependable, maybe. Wufei didn't take days off, didn't rest for fucking holidays or anything, better than the mail service with their stupid "rain nor snow nor dark of night" crap. And Wufei never asked him what he was doing there, or why he didn't go back to bed when he started yawning. Some days, they didn't even talk. But Wufei never indicated that he wanted Duo to leave, or explain himself.

There were days when Duo had to talk, needed it as badly as he needed to breathe; he felt a pressure building up inside his head when he didn't--the urge to talk wasn't triggered by anything in particular, nor did it center on anything deeper than whatever skittered across his brain in passing--and Wufei let him, listened, didn't try to shut him up or ignore him. It was kind of strange (almost like being back in Maxwell's church, in a way) but he tried not to question it too much.

So in some ways, Wufei was like coming home--but different, too, because Wufei was smart like Duo'd never experienced at home. Sister Helen, Father Maxwell, the kids on the street, they'd all been nice enough, but none of 'em could've been called the sharpest crayon in the box, or the most educated. Wufei was an honest-to-god scholar, complete with glasses and all the book smarts and school and discipline. At times, Wufei seemed almost alien in his scholarly background, with the importance he placed on studying and learning things the right way; other times, Duo could see something oddly reminiscent of Meiran, mainly in his values and morals.

And boy, did Mei have values and morals, though she also had nothing even remotely resembling humility with which to temper them. She'd fucking pissed Duo off a lot of the time, though he'd (of course) gotten his own back in snide remarks. But he and Mei'd worked well together. Kicked some serious ass. Idly, he wondered how the Preventor gig was going for her.

Duo was saved from his musings by the prompt arrival of Wufei, who smiled his thanks when he noticed Duo'd moved the furniture for him already. Wufei slipped off his shoes, laid his towel and his keys on one of the small tables, and began to do the breathing thing. Duo let his breathing fall in synch: deep and easy, calming. Duo practically had Wufei's entire form memorized, knew when each push was supposed to go, where it was supposed to go, knew how the moderately-muscled body would turn. Wufei had a few different katas, but the one he was doing seemed to be his favorite. It felt very basic to Duo, in an almost hypnotic way. Wufei's morning goals were his own, but Duo himself always found himself more at peace.

Wufei finished up around quarter after seven, as usual, and picked up his towel, giving the sweat on his arms and face a half-hearted swipe. He turned and smiled, utterly relaxed. "Good morning, Duo."

Duo smiled back. Wufei's good humor and serenity were contagious. "Good morning, Wufei. Sleep well?"

Wufei nodded. "Better than you, I imagine."

Duo shrugged.

Wufei raised an eyebrow, but didn't push. Duo liked that about him.

The Chinese boy reached back and pulled out his ponytail holder, combing his fingers through his hair and scratching his head. Duo thought he looked suddenly, inexplicably nervous.

"Duo," Wufei said after a moment, "do you want to go see the new Sang-li flick with me tonight?"

Duo thought about it. No, he didn't really want to see the movie. But, with Wufei? He glanced over at the Chinese man, remembering how he moved through the movements of the gentle kata, deadly maneuvers as slow and graceful as a dance. Duo wondered if Wufei'd ever killed a man--if it was possible to dance like that if he had. "What time?"

Wufei began to move the furniture back; Duo got a conveniently pleasant view of his ass as his pushed the table back into the center of the room, and noticed the edge of a scar running across his shoulder, down his back. When Wufei was done with the table, Duo was already up, helping him move the couch and pretending he hadn't been staring at anything he shouldn't have.

"Eight?" Wufei said when they were done with the couch. "We should be able to get there after dinner if we catch the number twelve shuttle."

"What about midterms?" Duo asked.

Wufei made a face. "Aren't you always telling me I study too much?"

Duo nodded, smirking a little. "Good point."

* * *

The movie was about as bad as Duo expected it to be, but Wufei didn't seem too disappointed. And, really, Duo was glad he went; the change of pace was nice.

He glanced over at Wufei next to him as they walked back to the bus stop, trying to hide a grin and failing.

Wufei, no idiot, caught his amusement and poked him in the side. "What is it, Maxwell?"

"I can't believe you wanted to go see a bad kung fu movie!" Duo finally let free the laugh that had been threatening since the stunt wires on the actors had gotten tangled. "You, someone who can probably do all those stunts for real!"

Wufei laughed and rolled his eyes. "I cannot jump quite that high, Duo."

"Or run on air?"

"Or move that fast." Wufei's smile faltered a little. "I'm not really that good."

Duo snorted. "Yes, of course. The person who practices every morning right down the hall from my room is some other Chang Wufei. I forgot that you're his incompetent identical twin."

"Being imperfect is a far cry from being incompetent."

"You're always like this," Duo said, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets. "Anytime I say anything nice about you, you slam yourself. I know fighting, Wufei. I know you're good. I know biology, and you're good at that, too."

"You don't know me," Wufei said a little stiffly, with more than a touch of defensiveness. "You don't know what I'm good at."

"I don't 'know' you? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Wufei crossed his arms, not looking at Duo, and walked a little faster. "Just because I practice doesn't mean I'm good."

"I don't get you, man!" Duo said loudly, drawing attention, and he took a few quick steps to catch up. He continued more quietly, "I know good fighting when I see it, Wufei. What the hell is this whole 'I'm not worthy' complex you've got going on?"

"Just drop it, Duo," Wufei said with a sigh.

"You have some serious issues. That's all I'm saying." Duo pulled his jacket a little tighter.

Wufei made a rude noise. "Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black."

Duo tensed; one thing they never talked about was their issues. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Fine. Neither do I." The look on Wufei's face said differently, but they both let it drop and continued walking in silence.

Duo knew Wufei was angry at him. The Chinese boy didn't look at him, and the silence between them was heavy enough to feel. Duo tried not to stare, but instead snuck glances out of the corner of his eye, trying to gauge Wufei's mood. He was the only real friend Duo had at school, and a good friend, besides; Duo wondered if he should offer an apology. He didn't want to lie to Wufei-actually tried not to do the lying thing at all, for all the good it did him-but the past was too close to talk about. Even after two years.

Duo wondered if he'd ever be ready to talk about it. Then he wondered what Wufei's problem was.

Wufei finally slowed to a stop, still looking a little stiff. He turned towards Duo, face almost unreadable. "Is this where I say goodnight?" he asked. Duo thought he heard a hint of a challenge in Wufei's voice.

"Huh?" Duo asked, and at Wufei's pointed head bob towards the building they'd stopped in front of, looked up at the sign. Merl's Bar. Oh. "I thought you didn't like bars?"

Wufei's look didn't change.

Oh.

He remembered Todd's body in the alley, hard and soft, demanding and eager. If he thought about it, he could remember the way Todd had leaned against the brick wall, grunting and groaning, and the way the air had smelled cold and slightly vile. He shook his head, clearing the image as abruptly as it came. He felt a blush building in his cheeks and curling around the tips of his ears, sure the memory had been visible in his eyes, and took a quick look through the window. Men dancing with women. He felt only partially relieved, and strangely disappointed. "No, I'm good. I, uh--" -liked it too much to do it again. "--I decided it wasn't helping."

Wufei studied him for another moment before giving him a curt nod and walking again.

Duo, suddenly apprehensive, wondered how much Wufei knew. "I'm sorry."

Wufei sighed, looking over. "You have a tendency to do dumb things, Duo."

Duo chuckled nervously. "Yeah, well, I'm trying to quit." He scratched his neck, feeling how his ponytail stopped a few inches down his back. "What about you?"

Wufei smiled, albeit thinly. "This isn't about me."

Duo begged to differ, but kept his mouth shut.

After a moment, Wufei continued. "You can't keep going like this."

"What are you, my keeper?" Duo bit his cheek, trying to give himself a moment to organize his thoughts. "Let's just drop it, okay?"

"Fine," Wufei said after a moment.

"Fine," Duo responded. The pause between them was awkward.

Wufei gritted his teeth. "Actually, no, it's not fine."

"Fine, it's not fine. Whatever."

"Duo--" He stopped whatever he was going to say, stopped walking, eyebrows heavy with frustration.

Duo stopped next to him and a little in front. "You're too hard on yourself, Wufei." His voice was quiet, and more intense than either of them expected.

"I think you have a death wish," Wufei shot back, although something in his eyes softened it.

A death wish. Duo nearly smirked-after all, wasn't he the Shinigami? "We're pretty fucked-up, huh?"

Wufei nodded slightly and shifted closer. To Duo. They stared at each other for a moment, framed by the glow of the yellowish streetlight and the fog of their breath in the night air, the moment made crisp in the way only cold air can.

Duo thought he might touch Wufei; he thought Wufei might touch him. Duo thought many things, all in one big flash of hurt comfort need warmth suffering friendship cold peace contentment need need need-

But he swallowed and stepped back, let Wufei step forward and they walked again, side by side. They'd had a moment, yeah, and Duo was pretty sure that they both knew it, but it'd passed too quickly.

Moments tend to, he mused.

* * *

The pew was hard; he remembered that much as clearly as if he was back in Maxwell's poor, broken-down chapel. Pews were designed to be hard and uncomfortable because, in the words of Sister Helen, it kept certain people--"Who shall remain nameless," insert pointed look here--from snoring during mass. Duo didn't think it helped anyone else pay attention, either, but he'd kept that thought to himself.

He was all the way in the back of the balcony, far from everyone else, and he liked it that way. He felt distinctly separate from the rest of the audience, despite the crowded chapel and the extraordinary number of students, faculty, and L-4 citizens packing the room. It made him feel guilty in a way that was almost better than feeling better, and that made him feel perversely guiltier. He could see the darkness outside through the large windows, and the string quartet at the front of the chapel, on the "stage" area, quietly played something nondescript as everyone finished taking their seats. Candles flickered in the large windows, the flames gently bouncing in the whirr of the fans for the recycled air. It was times like this that he missed Earth; it was somehow more real down there.

But the strings finished and the speaker stepped up to the podium, and Duo remembered that he hated it on Earth and would pay money to avoid going back. "Two years ago," the guy said into the microphone, "the war ended. Two years ago the senseless deaths ended. Two years ago we decided that peace was the only way. This is not the time where we celebrate that glorious peace, but the time when we remember the needless destruction and agony of the war."

Yes, a ceremony to remember how shitty it felt to watch people die. Only on L-4.

Wufei slid into the pew next to him as the speaker continued. "I couldn't find you," he whispered in apology or accusation. Duo wasn't sure which.

Duo'd actually intended to chase his demons alone tonight, but he didn't have the chutzpah, or the cajones, or the energy to shoo Wufei away. He was saved from having to respond when the speaker invited everyone to stand and sing. Duo wasn't much for standing and singing, but he felt obligated.

The song ended. They sat.

It was midway through the sermon--the lecture, the speech, the whatever you wanted to call it--that Duo realized he was completely numb. He'd hoped that his guilty conscience would find this cathartic somehow--that sitting here and wallowing in everyone else's pain would help. And somehow, the emptiness that he felt that should have magnified his guilt and hurt only made him feel more numb, isolated even from Wufei next to him.

What had it all been for, anyway? The war, the violence, the death--hell, his childhood, if he wanted to go that far. Nothing had been gained and so much had been lost, and he woke up dreaming about dead people he hadn't even killed, people he hadn't known or any of that. And the guy up there just talked about it, like he knew what war was, screw everyone else.

Duo wasn't even hearing the words anymore, but the numbness was fading, giving way to something that built inside him uneasily, anxiously vibrating and pulsing in waves of hot-cold, hot-cold. The speaker kept talking, though, and Duo thought maybe he could get through it without yelling or screaming or throwing anything by the end of the service. He could've held the tension in the room in his hands; it was thick enough that it was hard to blink his eyes or scratch his knee, and Duo was in the back, pews away from anyone other than the calm, if pensive, Wufei.

The speaker finished and sat; Duo could hear people weeping in front of him, below him on the main floor, but he remained oddly untouched, the tension in him beating on his mind but not breaking through. The choir stood, not quite in unison, and he looked at the mass of dark purple robes at the back of the stage. He glanced down at his program before looking up again, feeling oddly resigned and still listening without comprehending anything but the hot-cold, hot-cold behind his eyes, between his ears, up and down his throat.

As one, the choir began to sing, _"Can you hear the prayers of the children on bended knee in the silence of an unknown room?"_

And they sang and they sang, and Duo felt the music yank hard at something. He closed his eyes, felt a hand on his arm. Opened his eyes, looked over at a blurry Wufei. Struggled for breath. Closed his eyes. Opened them again.

"Duo," he heard Wufei whisper, and it was all it took for him to lean in and bury his face in Wufei's shirt, trying to bury himself, and finally his sobs, in Wufei's shoulder. Wufei's arms were around him, smoothing gentle circles in his back as he trembled and wept. It was remarkably violent, like everything Duo did, and he gave himself up to it, letting himself ruin Wufei's shirt with snot and drool, letting himself clutch Wufei like he was a pillow, not a living, breathing human being.

He felt like he was dying.

He felt like he was emptying, hollowing.

And Wufei made quiet noises, like the ones made to soothe babies, a "Sa, sa, shh, it's okay," kind of rhythm--nonsense, meaningless, but Duo'd stopped listening to meaning after the speaker began his talk.

"I couldn't save them," he muttered hoarsely at one point, half out of his mind and relieved he'd finally told someone. "They died because I couldn't save them." He wasn't even sure who he was talking about.

Wufei just held him tighter. "Sa, sa, it's okay, shh, sa."

 _"Can you hear the children's prayers?"_

* * *

She punched the button on the phone, turning to the viewscreen with a snarl ready on her face. "Chang. What?"

Quatre, on the viewscreen, held up his hands in a display of innocence. "Should I call back?"

Meiran took in a calming breath, willing some of her anger to dissipate. "Sorry, Quatre. I've been on the phone with the Chancellor all morning."

"Ah." Quatre nodded knowingly.

"If Heero and Relena invite him to the wedding, I won't be there." She pushed her work aside and turned to give Quatre her full attention. "Did you find him?"

Quatre sighed. "I've looked everywhere I could think of, Meiran. I've had my people looking, and their people looking, and some people distantly related to Raj, my sister Rehana's husband. No one's been able to dig anything up."

"Where did you look?" She sat back in her chair, scowling a little. Maxwell could be such a pain in the ass.

Quatre shuffled around on his desk, finally finding a long list. "Salvage yards, sports shops, France, mechanics... I can send you the list if you want."

Meiran shook her head. "I don't have time. Do you think he's hiding?"

"I just don't know," Quatre said with a sigh. "After the war, he just dropped out of sight. If we had something to work with--his bank numbers, an account name, a definite sighting somewhere--but this is like throwing darts in the dark at a moving target."

She grimaced. "There are times when I think we should just give up. And then I wonder if I think that just because it's Maxwell."

Quatre glanced down at the table. "Don't tell Heero, but I'm not sure if there's much worth finding, anyway. Towards the end of the war, Duo got very..." he searched for a word. "Duo was a little creepy. Not on purpose, mind you--but I could feel it." He patted his chest in a way that Meiran found both touching and self-important. "Every time he smiled, every time he laughed... it was so angry and *empty*."

Meiran nodded. "It was dark for us all, Winner."

"I know." Quatre shifted uncomfortably. "I have to go. I have a lot of paperwork before I go home for the night. I'll let you know if I hear anything."

Meiran nodded. "Same here. Chang out."

She stood and stretched, feeling her back creak and pop as everything fell into line. With a half-hearted rub of her eyes, she gave up on the reports for the moment, choosing instead to head across the hall to Sally's office.

"You look terrible," Sally said as Meiran walked in and plopped down in one of the chairs.

"Is that your professional medical opinion?"

"Yes," Sally said, ignoring the dry tone. "Did you eat lunch?"

Meiran looked at the time. Six-thirty. "I think I had a glass of water. And a donut sometime before noon. I bet that was better than you."

"You'd win that bet," Sally said with a sigh, letting her pen roll from her fingers. "You know, when we decided to put the Preventors together, I didn't expect quite this much paperwork."

"I envisioned more ass-kicking," Meiran said with a straight face.

"Sounds like _some_ cheapskates are ready to hire an administration," Une said from the door.

Sally crumpled up a piece of paper and threw it at her.

"An administration," Meiran said with a sigh of longing. "Would we ever have to do paperwork again?"

"What about saving money?" Sally objected. "I thought we agreed we didn't have the resources to hire anything but the bare essentials at the moment?"

"I think a little more help in the administrative department is beginning to qualify as essential." Une gestured to Meiran. "Point in case."

Meiran groaned and threw an arm over her eyes. "Let's do it. I never want to answer the phone again."

Sally laughed. "Chancellor again?"

"And then Winner." Meiran pulled her arm off her face, sitting up a little. "No news. Maxwell scares him and he wants to give up."

Une began to laugh. "He actually told you that?"

"Quatre's gotten lazy in his old age," Sally said with a giggle.

"Oh, Maxwell could be scary," Meiran admitted, watching Sally stand, stretch, and pick up her coat.

Une smirked. "But I think Winner's forgetting his own bout with insanity. _That_ was scary."

Meiran groaned. "Please don't remind me."

"Time to go, Chang," Une told her, holding out a hand to help her to her feet. "We're going to try out Micalli's tonight, remember?"

"Best pizza pie in town," Sally said with a dreamy sigh. "They say the crust alone is as thick as your finger..."

Meiran's stomach grumbled, and she accepted a hand up. "I suppose, if we must."

"Get your coat. Sally's getting impatient," Une said.

"Me?" Sally put her hands on her hips. "Wait a minute!"

Meiran wandered into her office and turned out the lights, sending one last reluctant look at the hated paperwork. Taking her coat off the rack, she wrapped her scarf around her neck and buttoned her coat up. She was halfway down the hall when she called out, "Last one to the elevator pays!" and began to run.

"Hey!" Sally yelled as Une took off. "I paid last time!"

Meiran laughed, and was just about to respond when the elevator dinged and the doors opened.

Zechs, long hair waving gently, grinned. "I knew you'd still be here!"

"We're off-duty," Meiran said, but she automatically donned a more professional demeanor.

"What is it, Zechs?" Une asked, also adopting a more somber attitude.

"I was just dropping off this paperwork," he reassured them, taking a file out of his briefcase. "My assistant has the flu. Very messy. I thought you'd appreciate my personal touch in this matter." He winked. "I try to keep things personal between us."

Sally laughed, accepting the papers and walking them back to her office. "You scoundrel. What do you tell Noin?"

His grin was mischievous. "About as much as she tells me."

When Sally returned without the papers, they all rode down to the lobby together. "So, how _is_ Noin, anyway?"

"She loves school," Zechs said. "She promises to be home for Christmas, despite having to come all the way back to boring old me. Do you think I'm boring?"

Meiran rolled her eyes at his pout. "It's never a dull day with you around, Marquis."

Zechs smirked. "I'll tell her that."

"Do," Une said dryly as the elevator opened.

They crossed the lobby, wishing the security guards goodnight. "But she's got her major all planned out; when she finishes, she'll have a job all ready for her in the government-so it's nice."

Outside the doors to the complex, Zechs bowed slightly. "This is where I say goodnight."

They waved. "Goodnight, Zechs."

They'd only taken a few steps away until Zech's voice stopped them. "Oh, should I reserve a ticket for Duo on the same shuttle as Noin?"

Meiran, Sally, and Une turned as one. "Huh?"

"For between semesters," Zechs said. "He will be coming back for Relena and Heero's wedding, right?"

Merian blinked. "You know where he is?"

"Of course. Noin's seen him around campus." Zechs picked at a hair on his suit coat, removing it with a disapproving frown. "So should I reserve the seat or not? It fills up pretty quickly around the holidays."


	5. Revelations 20:13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duo and Wufei work through some issues, just in time to run into some new issues.

The night air was colder than usual. At first Duo appreciated it--the chill felt nice against his overheated eyes and cheeks, still a bit swollen and red from tears--but after a few minutes he began to feel it scraping the moisture from his already dried-out skin. He settled his hat more firmly over his ears and pulled his jacket tighter, carefully not looking at Wufei.

Wufei's silence was less unnatural: he was always quiet. After Duo's breakdown in the church, Wufei'd been nothing but gentle, letting him sob until there was nothing left and everyone else had gone. Wufei'd finally bundled him up and taken him down the steps and out of the chapel; Duo didn't know where they were headed, and he couldn't gather his wits enough to ask. He wasn't even sure he really cared.

Duo folded his arms over his chest and tucked his gloved hands out of the wind as best he could.

"They're having a few problems with the central air system," Wufei said. It was the first either had spoken since leaving the chapel. "They said something in the filter was clogged--nothing dangerous, but it'll be cold. There was a news report before the service. We should have warmer air again in a day or so."

Duo didn't say anything.

They walked in silence for a bit longer, pausing at a crosswalk to wait for the light. Duo glanced around, noting somewhat distantly that they'd walked pretty far downtown. He finally let his gaze slide to the man next to him, shame again washing over him as he remembered how he'd broken down. Some Gundam pilot.

Wufei's sights were fixed in the sky somewhere. "I don't know how people on Earth can live with nothing between them and space," he murmured, staring at the blur of the stars through the clear plastic bubble that enclosed each of the L-4 satellite colonies. "How can they stand it?"

"I don't know," Duo replied just as quietly. "I've never understood it, either."

The light changed, and they crossed the street. "You're not an Earther, then?"

Duo shook his head. "I'm colony-born."

"So you fought with the rebellion?" Wufei's voice was wistful as he led Duo into the coffee shop.

"Yeah, sort of." The amount of heat that poured over them as they entered the coffee shop was, at first, unwelcome, but after Duo shed his hat, gloves, and coat, he found it actually quite pleasant. Wufei bought two large mugs of some kind of sweet, hot beverage from the woman behind the counter and walked Duo over to a small, soft couch next to the rustic fireplace. They sat there, sipping their drinks, and Duo began to feel life inch back into his feet. He almost regretted it; the pins-and-needles sensation hurt.

The coffee shop was mostly empty. Two students sat over at one of the tables talking through some project, their words barely carrying over the soft jazz playing over the speakers. The woman behind the counter had a crossword puzzle book out, and was biting her tongue as she hesitantly moved to fill in another word. The only other person in the place was an older man sitting by the window, reading the paper. Duo and Wufei were, essentially, alone.

"You were no ordinary soldier," Wufei finally said.

Duo fixed his gaze in his mug, staring at the swirl of cream against the dark brown of his drink. He could feel Wufei looking at him. "What makes you say that?"

Wufei's voice was warm and affectionate. "Nothing about you is ordinary." He took a sip from his mug. "Besides, the colonies didn't really fight in the war."

Duo felt the way the ceramic mug sat in his hands, heavy and warm, and rubbed his thumb across a dip in the handle. His face felt too large and puffy for his head, and his throat hurt. "I was a Gundam pilot," he whispered, and braced himself for Wufei's reaction.

"You..." Wufei froze next to him. "You were a Gundam pilot?" There was something in the way he said it that made Duo want to punch something--a kind of bitter amazement and confusion Duo'd never wanted to hear from Wufei.

Duo closed his eyes, feeling the way his eyelids kind of stuck together, and opened them again. They were cut off from the fire in the fireplace in front of them by the thick pane of glass on the front of the mantle. Everything wild and natural was put behind glass on L-4, and everything wild and natural was just in-your-face unrestrained on Earth. Duo wondered if there was some sort of middle ground, where you could be allowed to feel the heat from the fire without the danger of it raging out of control.

The mug in his hands was trembling; he gripped it tighter ("Control, Maxwell," he could hear Heero reminding him) and inhaled sharply.

"You were a Gundam pilot," Wufei finally repeated a bit woodenly.

"Yeah," Duo said, and the words came hoarsely. "Yeah, I was." He chuckled a little, realized it wasn't funny, and laughed a little more.

"Duo," Wufei said. He sounded a little lost, and a little hurt, and a little pleading. "Duo..."

"You wanted to know my trauma," Duo said, still chuckling, not feeling anything remotely related to humor. "Well, now you know. Happy?"

"You were..." Wufei exhaled slowly. "That must have been... difficult." There was something sincere behind whatever was in his voice, and when Wufei put his hand on Duo's arm, Duo couldn't help relaxing a little.

"Yeah. Hard." But he stopped laughing.

Wufei looked relieved. "I'm not upset." He looked affronted when Duo snorted. "I'm just surprised."

"What, I don't strike you as the violent mass-murdering type?" Duo considered drinking some more of his coffee, but he wasn't sure he'd be able to swallow against the cotton in his throat.

Wufei's hand tightened on his arm. "The Gundam pilots weren't murderers. Not any more than any soldier is." His gaze was intense enough to draw Duo's eyes from his mug up to Wufei's face; Duo could feel the force of Wufei's eyes as a shock deep in his chest.

"You sure about that?" Duo asked. He needed something--reassurance or comfort or Wufei's hand on his face or another coffee or something--and he held his breath, unsure of which he was about to receive.

Wufei didn't smile. "I've met worse."

Duo was suddenly very aware of Wufei's grip on his arm, not really loose but not really tight, either, with the thumb smoothing small circles on his upper arm. "You're really something, Chang Wufei."

Wufei's lip twitched. "Yeah?" The strands of hair that had come loose from his ponytail framed his face, gentling the sad expression in Wufei's dark eyes.

Duo felt the sudden urge to drive the sadness away, and raised his hand to cup Wufei's jaw, stopping just short as his nerves got the best of him. Wufei's eyes were unreadable, and Duo froze, wanting to comfort and be comforted, needing to touch.

He realized he'd leaned forward after it was too late to pull the motion, and his lips finally touched something--whether skin or lips, he couldn't be sure--just as the "abort" command finally clicked in his brain. It was too late to go back, though, and he let himself kiss Wufei, very softly and very timidly.

Because it was too late to go back.

Wufei inhaled sharply when Duo pulled back, and Duo retracted his hand from its hovering position. Wufei's fingers were digging into the muscle of his arm almost painfully; Duo didn't think he could look him in the eyes, so he kept his own closed, anticipating the next moment with an air of resigned dread.

The silence went on between them. Wufei didn't move, didn't make a noise. When he could bear it no longer, Duo finally opened his eyes and looked.

Wufei was staring at him, eyes almost black, pupils dilated, mouth slightly open. He didn't move, and Duo wondered for a brief moment if time had stopped.

And then, Wufei leaned in and kissed him, without a breath or warning, and Duo felt himself and his concerns fade in the overwhelming _presence_ of Wufei. As it became apparent that neither of them was about to bolt, Duo brought his hand back to the other man's cheek, resting it half in the black, silky hair.

They both pulled away after a moment. Wufei seemed startled to realize he was still clutching Duo's arm, and Duo knew it'd been that good for both of them.

"So," he said; even though he'd spoken softly, his voice was shockingly loud. "Yeah."

Wufei's smile was easy, chasing the innermost cold depths away. "Yeah." A bit husky; Duo felt a tingle travel down his spine.

"Yeah," Duo responded, because that seemed to say it all.

Yeah.

* * *

Sitting on the ratty carpet in Wufei's room, Duo concluded that Wufei's choice in movies sucked.

"Shh!" Wufei hushed through his laughter, nudging Duo with his elbow.

The man dressed completely (predictably) in black on the television screen ducked behind a bush as two armed guards chatted about girl troubles, and Duo crumpled up the empty bag of popcorn and tossed it in the direction of the trash. "'Fei, you've got this entire movie memorized," Duo returned, making a face as the bag bounced off the rim and rolled in front of the door.

"This is the good part," Wufei insisted, trying for a straight face.

Duo giggled, much to his dismay, which only made Wufei laugh harder. "You say that every scene!"

"You're ruining my favorite movie, Duo," he said in a tone that contradicted the statement.

"Hmph!" Duo responded, dramatically flopping down in Wufei's lap. "I can't believe you're obsessed with bad kung fu movies!"

" _Serpentine Warriors_ isn't bad kung fu!" Wufei mock-glared down at Duo.

Duo reached up and pulled off Wufei's ponytail holder, watching the black hair swing loose to frame his face. With his hair free and his glasses on, he reminded Duo of a model. Of course, Duo would be the first to admit to his bias; ever since they'd kissed in the coffee shop and Duo had let himself really look, everything about Wufei was attractive. Wufei smiled; something in Duo relaxed every time he saw it.

"Just watch the movie," Wufei told him.

Duo met him halfway for a kiss, and then resettled himself between Wufei's legs to watch the rest of the movie.

"Wufei," he said after a moment, as the hero of the movie flew up the side of a building. "What are you doing after finals?"

"Well," Wufei said, "I've always wanted to go to the zoo."

It was weird, but Duo'd heard stranger things come out of Wufei's mouth. "The zoo, huh? There's an entire colony that's a zoo, isn't there?"

"It's silly--" Wufei began, but Duo cut him off.

"Let's go."

Wufei's surprised and grateful pause was all the more endearing. "Thank you."

They watched the movie for a bit, and Duo noted the hero's resourceful use of the convenient gardening equipment. "I'll have you know," Duo said, fingers running along Wufei's leg, "that I don't watch _Serpentine Ninjas on Wires_ for just anyone."

" _Serpentine Warriors_ ," Wufei corrected, lightly smacking Duo's hip before stroking Duo's hair. "And that's because anyone else would kick you out. You're a horrible person to watch movies with."

Duo leaned into Wufei's hand. "Just because you have bad taste in movies..."

"If it was up to you," Wufei responded, "we'd be watching Gone With the Wind, so I don't want to hear about poor taste."

"Touche."

* * *

Duo was supposed to be doing homework, but he'd been distracted by the archaic game of Pong on his computer. It wasn't fun, exactly, but it was better than going over his biology notes or reviewing formulas for math. He leaned back in his chair, slouched a little, and put his feet up on the corner of his desk.

"Where's Wufei?" Jordan asked from his desk on the opposite side of the room.

"Study group for psych tonight," Duo said. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason," Jordan said, opening a giant bag of potato chips and popping a few in his mouth. "It's just strange for you to be back so early."

Duo didn't answer. He preferred to study with Wufei, true enough, even if they were studying different things. Even now that Wufei was a distraction Duo could touch and taste, just being in a room with Wufei took the edge off his emotions Duo hadn't even realized were there.

When the phone rang, Duo let Jordan answer it.

"'Lo." Jordan paused. "Yeah, hold on." He passed the phone to Duo. "It's for you."

"I've been looking for you," a warm voice said in his ear.

"Lena?" He took his feet off his desk and sat up a little straighter.

"I always knew you were the smart one," she said. "It's been so long, Duo!"

"Yeah. How've you been?" Duo asked, still a bit shocked.

"Very well, thank you. How are you? Enjoying school?"

"Yeah, it's great. I'm in the premed program," he said. He really couldn't think of anything to say--or maybe he had too much.

"You'll make a great doctor," Relena said.

"Yeah, thanks." Duo paused, and finally blurted, "How'd you find me here?"

"You'd be surprised the connections you make when you're Queen of the world," she said mysteriously, then laughed. "Or maybe you wouldn't. You know most of them."

"Oh." It was slightly weird, talking to Relena after so much had happened. He wasn't quite sure how to respond, other than, "So, I hear you're getting married."

"Hey, who told?" she exclaimed and laughed again. "I suppose the cat's out of the bag, then. Yes, the wedding is the sixth of January."

"Congratulations," Duo responded, feeling a smile creep up despite himself. Relena was just so... Relena. "So you and Heero have been busy planning."

"Yes. Well, no, _I've_ been busy planning." He could almost hear her rolling her eyes. "You might not've guessed it, but Heero is not exactly a first-class diplomat or master of the subtle."

Duo laughed outright at that. "Well, Heero's about as subtle as Wing Zero ever was."

Relena chuckled her agreement. "He sits in front of blueprints of the cathedral and mutters about snipers and air support. He's a good man, though. And I love him very much."

"I'm happy for you two," Duo said.

"We want you to come back for the wedding," Relena said. "Please? Heero wants you to be one of the groomsmen, and I could really use you around during all the pre-marital craziness."

"I... don't know." Duo frowned. "There's... I've got this friend, and..."

"Oh, a friend." Relena leaned into the word with a laugh. "Invite her along."

"No, not like... I mean..." Duo found himself suddenly, inexplicably at a loss for words.

Relena's chuckles continued. "Well, then, invite him."

"Relena!" Duo cried, not sure if he was more scandalized by her tone or by the amount of time it'd taken her to see through his facade of heterosexuality.

"Duo, please," she said, suddenly serious. "I'd love to meet your friend, and I'd really love it if you'd come to the wedding. Will you think about it, at least?"

Duo nodded before remembering that she couldn't see him. "Yeah, we'll talk about it. Thanks."

"Thank you." He heard her yawn. "I'm terribly sorry--it's three in the morning here. I should really be getting to bed."

"Go get some sleep," he told her, his head spinning. "Talk to you later."

"Let me give you my number first," Relena said, and he dutifully wrote it down.

"Sleep tight," he told her.

"You, too," she said. "Call me."

"Right. Good night."

He hung up and handed the phone back to Jordan, still a bit shocked.

"What's up?" Jordan asked.

"Old friend. She wants me to go back for her wedding," Duo said.

"You going?"

Duo stared at his game of pong. "I don't know. Neither Wufei or I have any family, so we were going to go to one of the outer colonies for break."

"A lot of people who went home for mid-semester break had that problem."

"What?" Duo asked, turning around.

Jordan tipped his chair back a little and spoke to the ceiling. "You know... college is supposed to be this whole experience where you get to create a new identity for yourself, to see if you can break away from what you used to know. And then when you go home, you can't be who you really are any more--because you've changed. Grown."

Duo couldn't remember the last time he'd been who he really was with the other pilots.

Jordan took a few swallows of his cola before continuing. "A lot of the people who went home for mid-semester break already had difficulty reconciling who they used to be with who they've become. And then they find themselves play a role around their family and friends, just to keep up the pretense." Jordan contemplated his drink for a moment. "We try to pretend we haven't changed because we're afraid that people won't accept us if we're different. Meanwhile, everyone's pretending to be something they're just so... not."

He seemed to be done, so Duo sighed and turned back to Pong. "You are such a Psych major."

Jordan snorted. "And a damn handsome one, too. The droves of ladies huddled outside the door tells you a thing or two about my studliness."

Duo rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right."

* * *

Duo was in the rec room waiting for Wufei to show up for his morning exercise by five-forty-five, curled up on one of the couches, exhausted and unable to sleep. Jordan (damn the man; every psychology major thought a few classes made you an expert) was right. Duo was afraid to go back.

It'd been awkward those last few months during the war; the Gundam pilots had been a practically inseparable team not out of comaraderie, but out of a single, unifying purpose and some orders issued by some damn scary scientists. Those last few months, Duo'd seen how Q'd been nothing but ice around him, and how Heero and Trowa'd ignored him even more, and how Meiran had nearly strangled him and kissed him within half an hour of each other. Could he go back without expecting that treatment again? Could he go back without them seeing him exactly as he'd been during the war?

Was he any different than he'd been during the war?

He spent the forty-five minutes in an anxious half-doze, more asleep than awake but not able to rest or relax, either. Did he need to go--some sort of closure thing?--or was this letting go of his past? Was he able to let go of his past? Would this be something he should do in order to let go of his past, or was this running away? Was running really such a bad thing?

Had running worked so far?

He jumped when the lights flickered on, and his hand groped for a weapon he no longer carried. He hadn't even noticed Wufei coming in.

Wufei was standing at the door, blinking blearily. "Duo?"

Duo blinked back, just as blearily.

"How long have you been in here?" Wufei still stood over by the door.

Duo shrugged. "Couldn't sleep." He just wanted Wufei to start his kata; he knew he'd be able to sleep while Wufei was practicing his form.

Wufei frowned. "Are you okay?"

Duo nodded, even though he didn't even think he was convincing. "Just do your Tai Chi, Wu."

But Wufei came over to the couch and sat down next to Duo. With so much tenderness that Duo thought he'd break, Wufei pulled him close and held him, rocking him gently.

Wufei was a strong presence against him, comforting and warm like he'd forgotten people could be. Every time Wufei held him, Duo was reminded, suddenly, of his humanity, and his mortality, and the privileges of both. Wufei's hands were tight against his back, rubbing small, warm circles next to his spine, patting him gently. He exhaled into the embrace and relaxed, letting his heavy head rest on Wufei's shoulder.

The edge of a shiny pink scar was visible when the neckline of Wufei's shirt pulled just the right way; Duo absently traced it with his finger, feeling the way it curved under his shirt and along his back. Wufei tensed a little, but only held him tighter, rocking them both.

"I am a gay man," Duo thought to himself. "I am a gay Gundam pilot who has a wonderful boyfriend."

With a little time and a little Wufei, he could deal with that.

"I am a gay Gundam pilot with a wonderful boyfriend who is going to hang out with all his Gundam pilot chums and attend the wedding of one of his best friends whom he hasn't spoken to in years and the queen of the world."

Magic eight ball says: Try again later.

He sighed and went to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Revelations 20:13: "And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and all were judged according to what they had done."


	6. Miles Apart Inside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein secrets are revealed and plans are changed.

Duo dubiously lifted another forkful of spaghetti to his lips, fairly certain it would be about as good as the previous four bites, and nodded at Wufei to continue.

Wufei didn't notice the nod, but continued just the same. "So we go into the test today, and what's on it?"

"I'm guessing not Freud," Duo said around his noodles, grimacing at the acidity of the sauce and pushing his plate away.

"I think Dr. Emar believes he was Jung in a past life. I hate that class." Wufei pushed his salad around on his plate. "There's too much dressing. There's only so much Ranch a man can take."

Duo grinned. "Well, Chez Tienen lives to serve. Cafeteria food is supposed to be bad. It inspires us to learn how to cook."

"I know how to cook," Wufei said. "I hate my psych class!"

"Poor baby," Duo intoned, batting his eyes while considering the half-eaten roll on Wufei's plate.

"So much for my supportive boyfriend," Wufei muttered, but grinned a bit.

Duo reached over and grabbed the roll. "Can you really cook?" he asked before taking a bite.

"I wasn't done with that," Wufei objected half-heartedly. "I learned a little about cooking during the war."

Duo chewed, letting it excuse his lack of response. Wufei never talked about the war; all Duo knew is that Wufei hadn't fought, he tried to hide the scars on his back and chest, and his family was dead. He went for casual. "Where was that?"

"One of the fringe colonies," Wufei said, eyes on his fork. "X-82. I worked in the kitchens." He looked up at Duo with an uncomfortable smile. "I make a mean pie."

"Pie, huh?" Duo tried to imagine Wufei the frilly apron Quatre had worn occasionally during the war. The image would not form in his mind. Duo felt relieved that his brain refused to equate Wufei with Quatre or any of the other pilots in any way. "Bake one for me?"

Wufei smirked. "You have to earn pie. Have you been a good boy, Duo?"

The edge of Duo's mouth turned up in a half-smile. "Define 'good'."

"'Not bad,'" Wufei said, a mischievous look in his eyes.

It was a challenge, and Duo was always up to Wufei's challenges. "I suppose you might like a demonstrat-"

"Do you mind if I sit here?" Sarah held her tray out, smiling at the two of them.

Duo and Wufei glanced at each other. "Go ahead," Duo said, and Sarah set her tray down next to Duo's, shrugging off her backpack.

"I'm so glad they fixed the circulation system," Sarah said cheerfully, picking up her sandwich and taking a bite. "I was having difficulty feeling my feet between classes."

"They had to call in a specialist," Wufei said. "Turned out the whole coil was shot."

"Wufei had to wear three pairs of socks," Duo told her in a confidential tone.

"Only two!" Wufei protested.

"Maybe, if your definition of 'two' is 'three.'" Duo smirked.

"My definition of 'two' is very similar to 'two.'" Wufei raised a challenging eyebrow, leaning forward a little over the table.

"Two extra."

"Two extra socks."

"Two extra pairs of socks."

"Boys!" Sarah said with a laugh. "Do I have to separate you two?"

Duo stuck his tongue out, startling Wufei into laughter.

"I don't think that will be necessarily," Wufei said with a grin. "As soon as Duo admits that he's wrong."

Duo looked at him skeptically, and a bit smugly.

"I think I remember putting on my socks. I did manage to dress myself. I wore my blue socks and a pair of white ones."

"Plus the ones you borrowed from me," Duo said.

"Plus... oh." Wufei frowned, thinking. "I forgot about those."

Duo smirked again. "So... the blue socks, the white socks, and a pair of my socks... shall we add?" He counted them off on his fingers. "One... two... and, is this a third?"

Wufei had a choice finger of his own for Duo. "Shut up."

Duo laughed at the face Wufei made and stole a crouton from his salad.

"I was going to eat that," Wufei protested feebly.

"I found it floating in the River of Ranch," Duo returned. "It was fair game."

"The Ranch River Crouton is an endangered species." Wufei indicated the remaining specimen with his fork. "There are only a few left in the wild."

"Huh," Duo replied, and stole the other. Under the table, he felt Wufei's foot caress his leg.

"Are you going to the Winter Ball, Duo?" Sarah asked at a lull in the conversation.

"I don't know." Duo leaned back in his chair and found Wufei's other foot. He smirked and put his arms behind his head. "Nobody's asked me yet."

"Really. No one?" Sarah looked up at him through the corner of her eye. "Want to go?"

Duo could've kicked himself, if he hadn't been playing footsie with Wufei. He exchanged a quick glance with Wufei, whose expression told him that, yeah, he should've seen that coming. "With you?"

And then he didn't have to kick himself, because Wufei had done it for him. Wufei's look was enough to make him bring his arms back down and straighten up in his seat, still wincing at the blow.

"Well, I wasn't asking for my roommate," Sarah replied lightly as she studied her own dinner, picking through her salad with her fork and stopping at a tomato.

Duo tried to figure out what to tell her. Wufei's calm stare told him nothing, and he sighed. He always tried to tell the truth. "It's kind of you to ask, but I'm sort of waiting for Wufei." He paused, and clarified. "To ask." And then he felt he better clarify again. "To ask me."

"Oh." Sarah paused, and glanced between them. She nodded, obviously trying to act casual. "Why don't you just ask him?"

"Because," Duo said, shooting a daggered look at Wufei, who was running his foot over the place he'd kicked earlier, "he's the romantic one, not me."

"So I can see," Sarah replied, tucking a brown curl behind her ear. Her lips curved up slightly in obvious amusement.

Wufei smiled sweetly at both of them. "I didn't know the dance meant so much to you, Duo. Should I expect to buy you flowers that match your gown?"

Duo laughed nervously and shifted in his seat. "My boyfriend scares me," he confided to Sarah.

"That's okay," she said in a conspiratorial tone. "Mine used to, too."

Duo felt a rush of relief as the conversation continued without any further hitches. If he looked carefully, though, he could tell that Sarah's casual attitude was all just a pose. He wasn't sure how he felt about that.

* * *

The couch in the common room was as good a place as any to study--especially when Jordan had left the "don't come in if you don't want to see naked girl booty" sign on the door and Wufei's roommate was loud enough that he hadn't needed to leave a "go away, we're fucking" notice (and hadn't, either, so it was probably somehow all for the best)--so they'd laid their books out on the coffee table and leaned against each other for support. Wufei was fully absorbed in his Political Science of the Postmodern Era book (which he'd threatened to lend to Duo when he was done), and Duo was nearly finished with his chemistry reading. He finished before Wufei, and used the time to prepare himself for the talk they were about to have.

When Wufei finally yawned, stretched, and put his book down, Duo broke the easy silence. "Hey, Wu, want to take a break for a moment?"

"Yes, very much." Wufei stretched again, and Duo heard the vertebrae in his back pop and crackle. "Is something on your mind?"

Duo nodded and let Wufei wrap a strong arm around him. "I got a call from Relena the other day. You know she's getting married in January?"

"'Relena?' You mean Relena Peacecraft? You got a call from Relena Peacecraft?" Wufei pulled back and gaped at him.

"What?" Duo looked at him, bewildered. "Well, yeah. It's her wedding."

"You know Relena Peacecraft?" Wufei's voice rose a little, and Duo was glad that they were the only ones in the room. "Personally?"

"I'll tell you stories some time," Duo told him dryly. "She's not that great."

"Relena Peacecraft, only _the_ most active and prolific political figure in the solar system?" Even though Wufei leaned closer, the volume and pitch of his voice did not lower, much to Duo's dismay. "Relena Peacecraft-Darlian, who became Queen of the World during the war and single-handedly almost stopped all the fighting? You know that Relena Peacecraft--and you didn't tell me?"

"I'm trying to!" Duo cried, both flustered and amused.

"You know _Relena Peacecraft-Darlian_ ," Wufei murmured, and turned around, leaning back into his boyfriend.

"Yes, about that," Duo said, his nervousness rushing back. "They want me to go to the wedding."

"Are you going?" Wufei asked after a moment. His voice was very quiet.

"Everyone will be there," Duo replied. "All the Gundam pilots and the people I knew during the war..." He laughed bitterly. "And you know how well I deal with anything even remotely related to the war. I can't do it alone. Can you--" he swallowed, "--can you come with me? I'm sorry, I know we were going to do the zoo for break, but... I don't think I can go alone."

Wufei's back grew tense against him.

"So, if you want..." Duo trailed off, watching as Wufei stood and walked to the window. "You don't want to go. We won't go."

"Not... exactly." Wufei turned a little as Duo shifted on the couch. "Don't get up. I... I need to say something."

He'd never heard Wufei's voice sound so hesitant. He sat back and bit the inside of his cheek.

"I was the sixth Gundam pilot."

Duo heard the words and took a moment to understand them. Zechs was the sixth--with Tallgeese and then Epyon--but that wasn't what Wufei meant, was it? Something hard washed through him, and he felt the blood drain out of his face and the world shift around him. He recalled the bright pink scars on Wufei's back, disappearing under his shirt. "Fuck," he whispered.

Wufei bowed his head, back still to Duo.

Wufei, whose name was Chang. Who was from the colonies. Who was Chinese, and the right age, and terribly scholarly, and--

"Fuck," he said again, loudly. "Fuck." He stood, walked around the couch, and paused when he met with the wall. "Fuck."

"Duo, I-"

Duo whirled around and crossed back in front of the couch. "You're married!"

Wufei flinched.

"My god, she doesn't even know you're still alive." He sat heavily. The couch cushions sank around him more than he expected. "Fuck."

Wufei was shaking, head still down, back still to Duo. He didn't make a noise.

Duo rubbed his face with his hand. "My boyfriend is married." He stared at Wufei, watching as the strong man trembled. "Fuck, Wu. I... you didn't tell me? Why didn't you tell me? Are you fucking kidding me?"

Wufei just stood in front of the window with his head bowed, arms folded in front of him, trembling. His shirt had ridden up a little in the back--enough for Duo to make out the edge of a long pink scar running along the edge of his spine, close enough to make some of Duo's own war wounds tingle in sympathy. Wufei, who by all rights should've been dead long ago, was dead according to Meiran, and Duo felt a rush of relief and anger and anxiety and a ghost of some strange tenderness as he watched Wufei almost fold into himself in shame.

He didn't know if Wufei could hear him anymore, so he pushed himself off the couch and came up behind Wufei, sliding his arms around the other man's waist. Angry as he was, he couldn't stand to see Wufei so vulnerable and alone. "Hey, Wufei, it's okay." Duo felt awkward and vaguely like maybe he was lying, but the sight of Wufei melting down was almost as disturbing as the revelation of his past.

Wufei inhaled abruptly and turned in his arms. He held Duo tightly, resting his head on Duo's shoulder. His body was stiff in the embrace, but Duo rubbed his back, trying to stop the waves of tension rolling off Wufei. Wufei made a choked noise that sounded something like an apology, and Duo just held him.

Finally, when Wufei had relaxed a bit, Duo spoke. "I wish you'd told me sooner," Duo said quietly, and his heart broke again as he stuttered through the idea that Wufei was committed to Meiran, committed permanently. He remembered Father Maxwell talking about the permanent nature of marriage, the two-made-one, and tightened his grip on Wufei. He felt sick. And then, "I can't believe you're married. Or alive. How are you alive?"

"I never died," Wufei murmured after a moment, pulling away a little, still sounding upset. "She left me there to die, but I never died."

Duo walked them back to the couch and pulled Wufei down next to him. "She thought you were already dead."

Wufei rubbed at his eyes with his sleeve, catching the tears before they could fall. Duo felt a deep ache in his chest as Wufei struggled to be calm and strong; they were so alike, despite it all. _Until death do us part,_ whispered through his brain, and he dug his fingers into the fabric of Wufei's sleeve.

"O picked me up and took me to one of the border colonies with good hospital facilities. It was a while before I recovered enough to train."

"They kept you for spare parts," Duo whispered in horror, and wished he hadn't when Wufei smiled deprecatingly.

"If any of you died or needed to be replaced, I was there." Wufei swallowed. "But I didn't even get the chance to pay my debt, or prove... so--"

Duo kissed him--in part because he wanted to, but mostly because he couldn't stand the self-loathing on Wufei's face anymore. The kiss was sweet and slow--not passionate, just comforting. "You have more honor in your pinky finger than most people have in their entire family," he said after he broke the kiss.

Wufei didn't look like he agreed, but didn't argue.

Duo hugged him tightly. "I think you should meet the people you almost fought with," Duo said finally, and wondered about the odds of it all. "But if you don't want to, we won't go." He swallowed. "And I think you should see Meiran again. Tell her you're still alive." Duo felt his hands tightening on Wufei, even as he said the words.

"It was an arranged marriage," Wufei said into Duo's neck. "We both hated it."

"Regardless--" Duo began. _Love, honor, and obey, 'til death do us part._ I am death, Duo thought, and stuffed his burgeoning panic down as far as he could.

"I'll go." Wufei breathed deeply, carding his fingers through Duo's ponytail. "You need to."

"I don't--"

"Yes, you do." Wufei sighed. "We both do."

Duo thought, I could fall in love with this man.

* * *

"Sorry about the dust," Duo said as he finally found the box he was looking for and brought it up from under his bed, wiping the thin layer of filth from the top with his hand before handing it to Wufei.

Wufei didn't bother to hide his nervous smile. "I've seen worse."

Duo wiped his dusty hand on the seat of his pants and settled next to Wufei on the bed, a little nervous himself. "I don't have much from the war--security issues--but I did keep a few things." He scratched his head and nodded to Wufei. "Go ahead and open it."

Wufei did so, settling the shoebox in his lap and setting the lid aside before pulling out the top picture. "Who is this?"

"That's Trowa. Heavyarms. Pilot 03." Duo smiled a little at the shot of Trowa in his clown costume. "He lived with a circus."

Wufei traced the outline of Trowa's hair. "Is that why--?"

"Nah, that was a fashion choice. He always wore it like that. None of us are quite sure why."

The next picture showed Relena rolling her eyes at a not-quite-stoic (most likely due to the fact that he was covered with flour) Heero. "This is them?" Wufei asked, even though he must've recognized them from the publicity the wedding was getting.

"Yeah, that's Heero and Relena. Heero was pilot of gundam 01--Wing Zero. It was his turn to cook. Relena insisted on helping." Duo smirked a little at the memory. "We ended up ordering pizza that night."

"Relena Darlian-Peacecraft travelled with you?" Wufei examined the picture closely with a jealous twist to his mouth.

"I wouldn't quite put it like that," Duo said with a laugh. "She kinda showed up every once in a while, whether we wanted her to or not."

The look on Wufei's face stated that he wouldn't mind being followed around by Relena Peacecraft, but he set the picture aside for the next on the stack. "You had long hair," he said in surprise, looking back and forth between Duo and the picture in his hand.

"Uh, yeah." Duo's hand went to the back of his head where the hair was now cut close to his head. "Um, Duo Maxwell. Pilot 02. Deathscythe. I, uh... cut my hair shortly after that picture was taken."

Wufei kissed him. "Are you trying to grow it out again?"

Duo shrugged and looped an arm around Wufei's waist. "I just don't see the point anymore."

Wufei pursed his lips in thought, bringing his own hand up to Duo's hair and combing his fingers through the short, thick strands. "This style suits you, too."

Duo glanced at the picture again, looking at his past self, back _before_ , and flipped the picture over. "It was just a way to hold onto the past."

Wufei nodded and looked at the next picture. "Is this Quatre Winner?"

"Yep." Duo felt Wufei smile as he scooted a little behind Wufei, resting his chin on his boyfriend's shoulder. "Pilot 04. Sandrock."

"Quatre Winner? Head-of-Winner-Enterprises-Incorporated Quatre Winner?" Wufei stared at the picture of Quatre and Trowa drinking coffee. "Exactly how many famous people were Gundam pilots?"

"Only one," Duo said with a laugh. "Well, two if you count Heero, but he's only famous by association. ...Well, three if you count Zechs."

Wufei frowned, obviously racking his head for the name "Zechs," and flipped the picture. "Who is Zechs?"

Duo indicated the next photo. "Milliardo Peacecraft, also known as Zechs Merquise. Pilot 06, Tallgeese. And Epyon."

"Oh," Wufei said in a small voice. "Tallgeese and Epyon?"

"He worked for Oz for a while. Trashed Tallgeese, stole Epyon." Duo hugged Wufei closer. "He was kicked out, so he led White Fang for a while. That didn't really pan out, and he joined us in the end. He was pretty good at being on the winning team."

Wufei laughed, but his voice seemed to stick in his throat a little. "Is his hair still...?"

Duo rolled his eyes. "Good Lord, yes. That man is so vain, he'll never cut his hair."

Wufei grunted and moved onto the next picture... and stopped smiling. Meiran looked up at them, smirking at the camera and saluting it with her mug of coffee from her spot at a rickety kitchen table.

Duo gave Wufei a squeeze, feeling the sudden tenseness. "Chang Meiran," he said quietly. "Pilot 05. Shenlong."

Wufei said nothing.

"She and a few others helped form the Preventers right after the war," Duo continued, filling the air. "They have government funding and everything, now. I've heard they're going to officially be government employees when the next bill is passed."

"Does she hate me?" Wufei asked quietly.

Duo laid his head on Wufei's shoulder and kissed his neck just below his ear. "I don't think she ever hated you."

"There was a time," Wufei said slowly, still staring at the picture, "when I was sure she did. I was not always this nice, Duo."

"Me, neither." Duo looked down at the picture. "And Meiran was downright nasty a lot of the time. She was angry, but I can't believe she hated you."

Wufei swallowed and picked up the next picture on the stack. "Perhaps you're right."

Duo held him tighter and wondered if he was going to lose Wufei to Meiran.

* * *

Finals passed in a blur; Duo felt obscenely vindicated when he passed out of Cavell's Biology 101 with a 3.7--the second highest in the class. Wufei beat him with a 3.8, and had the good grace to stammer when Duo asked him for his secret study hints. "You know," Wufei told him with an uncharacteristic blush. Duo just grinned.

With the passing of finals, however, came the inevitable flight back to Earth. As the date approached, something deep in the pit of his stomach began to gnaw at his nerves, and even his fairly even-tempered roommate was itching to get rid of him.

"Don't you have somewhere to go?" Jordan asked pointedly after Duo'd bounced a tennis ball off the wall forty-three times. "Maybe with Wufei?"

"I don't spend all my time with Wufei," Duo protested, throwing the ball at the wall again.

"Right," Jordan said, and went back to his psychology notes.

"I sleep here, don't I? I'm here now, aren't I?"

"Lucky me," Jordan grumbled.

"Will you cut that out?" the person next door yelled as Duo threw the ball at the wall again.

"Keep it down, we're trying to study in here!" Duo called back, throwing the ball again and watching Jordan smother a smile.

A muttered curse was the guy's only response, and Duo threw the ball again, feeling strangely vindicated for every night of porn music that'd filtered through the wall.

Jordan put on his headphones.

* * *

Duo held up two pairs of socks and stared at them for a moment before collapsing into his desk chair. "It's hopeless! I'm never going to know what to pack!" With a moan of despair that was only half-melodrama, he tossed them at his suitcase. One pair landed half on his bed; the other hit Wufei square in the face.

Wufei coughed, and Duo could tell he was hiding laughter. "It might help if you started putting your clothes in your suitcase instead of tossing them about the room." He raised an eyebrow at Duo, not trying to hide his amusement. "Just a thought."

Duo wrapped his arms around Wufei's waist and buried his face in his boyfriend's side. "I don't know what to pack. Everything I own is completely wrong for this. I mean, I don't even own anything I could wear to a wedding!"

"Duo, it's a wedding. You can rent a tux, I'm sure." Wufei stroked Duo's hair soothingly.

"It's not too late to go to the zoo, is it?" Duo moaned into Wufei's shirt.

Wufei leaned down and kissed the top of his head, chuckling a little. "Wouldn't your friends be surprised if we sent them a postcard from the hyena cage?" He reached around and released Duo's hands from his waist, pulling Duo to his feet and nudging him towards the suitcase. "If you'd done your packing earlier, we could be having fun tonight."

"Yeah, well, we can't all be anal retentive," Duo grumbled in reply, earning himself a smack on the butt. He fought the grin Wufei's touch brought, struggling to keep ahold of his bad mood, and stared mournfully into his suitcase. A pair of pants, two shirts, two pairs of underwear, and half a dozen mis-matched socks.

"Just put the contents of your dresser in your suitcase and get it over with," Wufei said, his eye-roll almost audible. "You don't own enough clothes to have this much trouble."

"Hey, this is a delicate process you're interrupting," Duo grumbled, opening the top drawer of the dresser and stuffing the contents into his suitcase.

"Yes, very delicate." Wufei pulled smiley-face boxers from the suitcase and held them up, raising an eyebrow. "Delicate."

"They were a gift." Duo pulled them out of Wufei's grasp and put them back in the drawer.

"A gift," Wufei echoed, and began to root around in the suitcase, discovering a tropical-print shirt in the wad of clothes and shaking the wrinkles free. "This was a gift, too, right?"

"No, I stole that from a crotchety old man." Duo put _that_ back in his drawer, too. "It was Howard's. The bastard owed me that much."

"The shirt off his back?" Wufei grinned.

Duo abandoned packing for the moment in order to teach Wufei a valuable lesson about grinning.

* * *

Their jet took off at eight-o-seven in the morning; Duo thought Wufei was much too chipper for so ungodly an hour--especially after they'd been up so late the night before. As they waited to board, Duo once again glanced nervously at Wufei. The other man smiled back, squeezing his hand in reassurance.

"It's going to be alright, Duo," Wufei said. His expression was gentle. "Just relax."

"Wufei..." Duo glanced over at Noin, who was sipping her coffee with the devotion of one who needed an entire pot before she could be called human. "Wufei, I gotta warn you. Things might... I might... change."

Wufei raised an eyebrow.

"When I'm around the other pilots. I kinda got into the habit of... playing the fool, I guess. During the war? And." Duo played with the skin on Wufei's knuckles. "It's kind of a defense mechanism of mine."

"I see," Wufei said neutrally.

Duo swallowed and forced himself to look up. "I'm just saying that I might act a little crazy or something. But it won't change the way I feel, not really."

"So I should be prepared for you to revert to war behavior?" Wufei tucked a strand of loose hair behind Duo's ear. "Isn't that a little extreme?"

"Well, you know me, Wufei. I'm an extreme kind of guy. They're boarding. We should get in line." He stood, pulling Wufei up behind him, and tapped Noin. "Jet's leavin' without ya, Lu."

Lucrezia Noin grunted and stood, chugging the rest of her coffee to join them in line.

"You won't get... flamboyant, will you?" Wufei doubtfully raised an eyebrow at Duo. "Because I'm not sure I could stand you lisping and swishy." He made a demonstrative motion that made Duo laugh in relief.

"Nah, I leave that for Zechs," Duo replied with a wink in Noin's direction.

Noin coughed. "I don't think anyone has to leave that for Zechs," she grumbled good-naturedly. "I think he just takes it."

* * *

By the time they'd touched down at the airport, Duo was nearly sick with worries and what-ifs. He'd had half a mind to tell the pilot to turn the jet around, but Wufei made him take the window seat and wouldn't let him get up. Only the sight of Wufei's own nervous habits--the slight twitch in his left eyebrow and the tightening of his upper lip--made Duo remember that he wasn't the only one facing his dark past. He smiled very slightly in what he hoped looked like reassurance as they collected their bags and followed the herd of people off the jet.

Noin had managed to bully almost three pots of coffee out of the stewardess during the sixteen-hour flight, and was almost bouncing in excitement. "Come on, you guys!" she kept saying, reaching back to tug them along after her. "Hurry up! Come on!"

Duo and Wufei shared a glance of anxious amusement and allowed themselves to be pulled into the airport.

Zechs was waiting for them, easily distinguishable with his long, pale hair and tall stature; Duo and Wufei hung back a little to give Noin a moment for greetings and hugs and kisses with her boyfriend. Duo clutched Wufei's hand with all his strength.

Finally, Zechs pulled back from the embrace and tossed his head, as if just noticing Duo. "Maxwell," he said jovially. "It's been a while!"

"Yeah, a few years, anyway." He could feel the joker mask hovering on the edge of his features and strove to repress it; it was too early in the trip to force Wufei to deal with an entirely new Duo. "You look good."

"I am good." Zechs winked. "I'm always good."

Noin rolled her eyes.

Duo took a step forward, pulling Wufei after him. "This is Chang Wufei. Wufei, meet Zechs Merquise, also known as Milliardo Peacecraft."

Zechs gave Wufei a considering glance, finally cocking his eyebrow at Duo in an obvious signal of approval. Duo felt strangely like blocking Wufei from Zechs' blatantly lurid gaze, possibly with violence, but settled for tightening his hand on Wufei's and sending the blond warning signals with his eyes.

Wufei, thankfully, was too astounded to be anything other than oblivious to the exchange. "It's an honor, Sir! Your highness! Sir." He looked as if he didn't know whether to bow or kneel or shake his hand.

Zechs grimaced and shook his hand. "Please," he begged, "my sister is the one with all the titles. Just call me Zechs. I'm not royalty."

"Is this a display of modesty I see?" Noin recoiled in mock dismay. "Who are you? What have you done with Zechs?"

"I can be modest," Zechs protested. "I'm very modest. I'm the most modest person I know."

Duo snorted, relaxing a little. "Welcome to Earth, Wu."

A shorter blond man pushed his way through the crowd to stand next to Zechs. Duo's nervousness returned full-force.

"Hello, Maxwell," Quatre said, glancing toward Wufei's and Duo's joined hands. Although he smiled, it was a politician's smile, and his blue eyes were cold. "It's nice to see you again."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Although we both lie close together  
> We feel miles apart inside..."
> 
> \- Every Rose Has Its Thorn, by C. Deville


	7. So Bitter Hung

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Relena and Heero are getting married, but she still won't let him do diplomatic work. Duo and Wufei find themselves dealing with many, many people and Quatre.

If not for the incredibly awkward conversation they were having, the limo ride back to Peacecraft Manor would've been in complete silence. Duo wondered if maybe he wouldn't've preferred the silence.

"So," Quatre asked, "what have you been up to these past few years?"

"Not much." Duo shrugged and offered Quatre a helpless grin. "Did some traveling. I'm in school now."

"Studying hard." Quatre's tone was not overtly skeptical, but his doubt was easy enough to read. He leaned forward to tell the driver something.

Quatre was taller than Duo remembered, but that wasn't what gave him the uncomfortable edge. It wasn't his hair, either, which was still in the neat business style he'd adopted during the war. It was possibly something in the eyes, or in the set of his mouth--an expression that emphasized (advertised?) his tactical danger. Duo tried not to think about it too much.

He reached for Wufei's arm before pulling the movement, making a fist, and bringing his hand back to his lap.

Quatre, though congenial to the extreme, had a coldness about him that made Duo simultaneously need to be both closer and farther away from Wufei. His tone grew more boisterous, and his words sharper, almost beyond his control. Wufei, seeming to sense his restlessness, reached over and grabbed Duo's wrist firmly, restraining him from flicking the zipper on his jacket.

"You know me," Duo replied with what he considered to be a fairly affable shrug, given the circumstances. He could feel Wufei watching him, and chanced reaching over to where Wufei's hand still restrained his wrist and squeezed.

"Yes," Quatre said after a moment. "Things have been fairly exciting around here, lately, as well, especially with the wedding. Trowa and I have been helping Relena and Heero with a lot of the details, especially with the foreign dignitaries. It's going to be the event of the century."

"I bet." Duo glanced out the window, watching the city pass. Cities all look alike, he decided, and watched the buildings some more. It was easier than looking Quatre in the eye. "Lena's always had a flair for drama. I bet she's loving it all."

"We're all enjoying ourselves. It's nice for us all to be able to get back together again. It reminds me of some of the good times."

Duo didn't believe it for a second. The trip seemed to take forever. Duo didn't bring it up, but he noticed Quatre never once spoke to Wufei.

Wufei, whether still star-struck from his meeting with Zechs (and now Quatre), or simply picking up on Duo's discomfort, radiated tension in the seat next to Duo. His lips were pressed tightly together, his eyes wide as he took in Earth, the limo, Quatre, and the busy city. He steeled himself, as if about to speak, and with calm precision Quatre stepped in again.

"You will be staying for the wedding, I hope." It wasn't a question, and Duo thought he recognized a hint of insincerity in Quatre's tone.

Duo had been trying not to be a jackass, both to save Wufei from having to deal with Q and his cold war and in honor of Relena's wedding. Q knew just how to get under his skin, and Duo wondered why he even bothered to attempt propriety. Wufei would probably, maybe forgive him, and Relena secretly thought it was funny (he hoped). Duo spread his legs, slumped a little in his seat, and laid his arms along the seat back, pulling out the little insolent grin his teachers had learned to hate. "Guess that all depends on the finger foods 'Lena puts out. I know how much you love fingers in your food."

Wufei nudged Duo's leg, which was now firmly in his personal space, but his lips stayed pressed together, his silence a shield.

"I like to keep my hands clean," Quatre said, rising to the bait without raising his voice. "That isn't a crime."

"Oh yeah," Duo agreed with a smirk. "You're big on clean hands. But let's not bring crime into it."

There weren't very many things Duo enjoyed more than being a bastard to Q.

* * *

Relena and Heero's house was large and surrounded by even larger grounds, which were in turn surrounded by a tall brick-and-steel wall. As the car was admitted through the gate, Duo recognized some of Heero's security traits: the camera placement, the grounds layout, even the mannerisms of the thoroughly Yuy-trained security guard. He grinned a little to himself; some things never changed.

Despite their connections, all three were required to undergo a quick search. Duo kept his mouth shut as they ran his suitcase through the metal detector; if he wanted to smuggle in something dangerous, there were several ways to get it past security--even Heero's security. He found himself identifying the best places to leave explosive devices and forced himself to stop. Wufei seemed a little surprised by it all, but he still hadn't spoken since meeting Quatre, so any questions he may have had were most likely suppressed by the discomforting tension of their host (or, as Duo privately termed it, Q stuck firmly in "stick-up-the-ass" mode).

After Security had confirmed Duo's non-terrorist status to the best of their ability, Quatre led them down the entrance hall toward the grand velvet-carpeted entrance stairway, complete with polished wooden banisters decked with garlands and holly for the Christmas season. Duo, finding himself breathing easier now that Quatre's eyes were no longer on him, glanced over at Wufei, who was, it seemed, star struck again.

"We're staying in Relena Peacecraft's house!" Wufei whispered, taking in the wide open hallways, marble floors, and high ceilings. "Do you think we'll actually meet her in person?"

"Indubitably," Duo whispered back, feeling a grin tugging ever so slightly at the corners of his mouth despite Quatre. "Why, would you rather go to a motel?"

The scandalized look Wufei shot him almost made Duo laugh out loud.

"I have to get back to work soon, if you don't mind," Quatre called from the first landing on the stairs. "This way, please."

A snide remark danced on the tip of Duo's tongue, but he glanced again at Wufei's awed face--he was examining the cherry wood staircase, rubbing his hand over the banister and mumbling something about "so much real wood"--and swallowed the thought. "Be right there."

As they ascended the staircase the house seemed impossibly silent, with only the muffled sound of their own footsteps against the padded stairs. Duo felt the sudden nervous urge to fill the air with idle talk--but for once he couldn't think of anything to say. They continued up to the second level of the house before Quatre led them down the grand, tapering hallway toward the bedrooms. About midway down, he stopped and opened one of the doors.

"Your friend can stay here, Duo." Quatre waved Wufei into the room with a nonchalant sense of dismissal before turning back to Duo. "You come this way."

Duo wished he still had his braid; he needed the comforting weight back like he'd never needed it before, and there was something about Quatre's polish that made him feel like a child again. "I'll be back in a few, Wufei," he said, and glanced around the room. It was nice--lots of delicate glass and porcelain things scattered about, and Duo squeezed Wufei's hand again, suddenly irrationally afraid that he'd breathe wrong and the entire room would shatter.

Wufei nodded and squeezed back. "Okay."

It occurred to Duo that perhaps he hadn't quite prepared Wufei properly for this trip. He wanted to brush the strand of hair from the corner of Wufei's eye and run a comforting finger down his cheek, and maybe even give him a small, gentle kiss, but Quatre was watching, waiting inscrutably, so he let Wufei's hand go instead.

* * *

Quatre dropped him off at his room--around the corner and down the hall and around another corner, at the very end--and left after informing Duo that he and his guest would be expected to be dressed and downstairs for dinner promptly at six, approximately in the next zip code. Duo made a mocking face at Quatre's back before turning to examine his assigned quarters.

The room was like a museum. It was nice enough--large bay windows, a balcony, elaborate decorations, a couple of busts of old people he was sure were either important political figures or Darlian ancestors or possibly both--but as he stood there, duffle in his hand, his carry-on at his feet, the walls of the room felt like they were closing in on him, slowly but surely.

"Hey," Wufei said quietly from the doorway.

Duo turned towards him, a nervous smile settling onto his face before he remembered where he was. "Hey, Wu." He was still carrying his suitcase, he realized belatedly, and set it on the floor. Hands strangely empty, he moved to fiddle with his braid--something he hadn't done for years--and had to make do with pulling at the short hair at the base of his skull. "You doing okay?"

Wufei nodded. "I thought I'd come find you." He was still standing just outside the doorway, leaning casually against the jamb. He looked as timid as Duo felt. "How are you?" he asked after a moment.

"Just fine," Duo answered, too quickly, and laughed. "Don't just stand there. Come in, come in. I'm pretty sure nothing will break if we just stand quietly in the middle of the room."

That was all it took to break the awkwardness between them. Wufei came in and stopped in front of Duo and held him, settling his head on Duo's shoulder and rocking them gently.

Duo sighed, relaxing into the embrace and clutching Wufei close. He let the other man's presence wash over him, buried his face in Wufei's hair and breathed deeply, let Wufei's arms soothe him, Wufei's hand stroke his hair to calm him. "Have I mentioned lately how amazing you are?" Duo murmured finally, kissing Wufei's temple.

He could feel Wufei's tired smile against his neck. "Not recently, no." He pulled back a little but not away, and Duo let him, releasing him a little reluctantly. "You're so tense."

Duo smiled, a bit rueful. "Quatre really gave me the heebie jeebies. He kept looking at me like he expected me to--I don't know. Everything's different, but it's like I'm the only one who realizes it."

"Just give it a few days," Wufei said softly, carding his fingers through Duo's hair almost absent-mindedly. "I'm sure he'll come around."

Duo nodded, but let his eyes focus over Wufei's shoulder at the window. "What a view, right? Bet you've never seen trees like that before."

Wufei didn't let him go, and frowned instead. "We can leave, if you want. We can come back for the wedding."

Duo shook his head. "Let's just try it for a few days. Maybe it won't be so bad."

Wufei smiled. "Maybe we'll have a good time."

Duo shrugged, unconvinced but willing to be hopeful. "Maybe."

A sound in the hall made them both turn, pulling apart almost guiltily. The person at the door wasn't Quatre, though, but a pleasantly-smiling Relena. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to meet you at the airport. My meeting ran a bit longer than I intended."

Relena was prettier than he remembered: she was a bit taller, and her hair was back in a bun, giving her a more elegant and mature air. Her clothes were carefully tailored, containing none of the frills and ruffles she'd favored during the war. Now, she almost reminded him of a younger, less-scary version of Une.

At first he felt frozen at Wufei's side, deliberately not touching. She quirked her eyebrow at him with a snarky smile, though, and he relaxed.

"Lena," Duo said with a grin considerably less forced than the one he'd given Quatre. He moved forward and swooped her up, twirling her around. "You're getting married!" he whooped suddenly.

She giggled, sounding more like the girl he'd known before as she held onto his shoulders. "I know!"

He set her down, stepping back and giving her a closer look. "You're beautiful as always, Lena."

"You look..." she tilted her head, staring at his face. "Good. You look good."

Duo's smile lost a bit of its sparkle, but he stepped back, reaching behind himself to grab Wufei's arm and pull him forward. "I'd like you to meet someone. Wufei, this is Relena Darlian-Peacecraft, soon to be Relena Darlian-Peacecraft-Yuy."

"I may drop the 'Darlian'," Relena confided, reaching forward to shake hands. "Although, I hear longer names are coming back into style."

"Lena, this is Chang Wufei." Duo nudged Wufei forward a little, stepping to the side and hiding his own fidgeting hands behind his back.

Wufei shook her hand, stammering a little as he nodded to her, offering a tentative half bow. "Pleased to meet you, Ms. Peacecraft. Darlian-Peacecraft. Um, your Majesty. It is an honor."

"Please, call me Relena," she said. "We're going to be spending Christmas together, after all."

"Of course," he said, still visibly stunned at her presence. "I mean, if you want me to, I... of course. How-how did you meet Duo?"

Duo laughed and Relena blushed, chuckling a little herself. Wufei sent his boyfriend a curious look.

"Heero was going to shoot her," Duo finally said, leaning against the wall. "And I stopped him. And she scolded me!"

"I had a bit of a rebellious streak in my younger days," Relena said, still blushing a bit.

The ridiculousness of the statement suddenly hit Duo, and he doubled over in laughter, clutching his side with one hand and Wufei with the other, using him as a human prop. "A 'rebellious streak'?" he finally gasped out.

"Please, let's wait a few more moments before we completely disillusion Wufei," Relena said, melodramatic expression barely covering her own laughter. "It's bad enough that Quatre won't let me forget the pink limo."

"You had a pink limo?" Wufei sounded torn between horror and polite inquiry. Duo wondered absently if the horror was due to his casual dialogue with the woman who was apparently Wufei's personal hero.

"She had this pink dress--" Duo couldn't get any more words out before he ran out of breath and the laughing fit took over and he shook helplessly, still holding on to Wufei's arm for dear life. He felt Wufei shift to help hold him up, felt more than heard Wufei's own chuckles--probably at Duo's inability to quit laughing--and finally, finally he was calm enough to open his eyes and wipe his tears of laughter on Wufei's shirt.

"Are you quite finished embarrassing me?" Relena asked once his composure was back, visibly amused.

"For the moment," he said with a chuckle, and suddenly realized how closely he was standing to Wufei. As unobtrusively as he could, he peeled back, feeling a bit nervous again.

Relena looked back into the room behind them, frowning slightly. "This isn't where I--" Her face crumpled in confusion. "Where did Quatre put you, Wufei?"

Wufei pointed in the general direction of his room.

"I'm sorry, Duo, Wufei." Relena sighed. "I hope you haven't unpacked your things yet, but I had this room in mind for another guest. Heero must've played with the arrangement. I don't know where in the world he thought the Minister of France was going to stay. I'm really afraid no where else will do. Do you mind moving?"

Duo shook his head, trying to act casual. "Anything for you, 'Lena." How far would he be from Wufei now? Different wings? Hell, the building probably had a few zip codes of its own.

Wufei and Duo went back in the room for Duo's bags. Wufei squeezed his forearm reassuringly, and Duo tried to convey his appreciation and apology with his eyes. Didn't look like everyone was as open-minded and comfortable as they said they were.

They returned to the hall, each carrying one of Duo's bags, and began to walk down the hall. They turned the corner and went up a small flight of stairs to a different hallway with a soft blue rug, and then a noticeably smaller hallway. At that corner, Relena opened the door to the outside corner room, revealing a slightly smaller, less ornate room. The cream-colored walls had a few pictures of plants hanging on them, and the wall adjacent to the door was decorated with a large mural of the forest. At the center of the wooden floor, next to the bed, was a light-colored rug. The bedspread on the Queen-sized bed was ivy.

"I call it the green room," Relena said. "Is it alright?"

Duo sighed in relief; the room's decor, while less expensive, was more homey. And, though he was up a flight of stairs, it was closer to Wufei's room than he'd been before. "It's wonderful, 'Lena. Thanks."

Relena moved back a door and opened it. "I think you'll like this room better, Wufei. The one you're currently in can get a bit drafty. I'll have Erma bring your luggage up. Just let her know if there's anything you need."

Sneaky Relena. Duo squeezed her shoulder.

She smiled in understanding and took a quick glance at her watch. "I have to make a phone call, but then I'm done for the day. Why don't you guys get unpacked and meet me downstairs in half an hour or so?" Her smile turned crafty. "If we order pizza before Heero gets home, he can't complain."

"Sounds good to us," Duo answered after exchanging a look with Wufei.

She rolled her eyes. "He says it's bad for my figure. That man thinks everything that's not a carrot will clog my arteries when I smell it. I had to talk him out of serving tofurky at the reception." She winked. "I love Heero, but there are reasons I don't let him into diplomatic work."

"Other than the fact that he comes off kind of creepy?" Duo offered, only half-joking.

She nodded. "Other than that." Relena touched Duo's arm gently. "Thank you for coming, Duo. It means a lot to me." She turned to Wufei. "It was nice to meet you, Wufei."

As she headed back down the hall, towards the stairs, Duo and Wufei headed for Wufei's old room for his bags, moving them into the room next to Duo's.

"She's nice," Wufei said finally. "A lot different than she seems on television."

Duo nodded. "She used to be such an airhead, but Relena really grew up during the war."

Wufei put his suitcase on his bed and opened it up. "Did she really yell at you for saving her life?"

"Yeup." Duo threw himself down on Wufei's bed next to his suitcase, bouncing a little. "Let me tell you how a few of those things you saw on Celebrity Biography really happened..."

* * *

Despite Quatre's earlier warning about a strict dinnertime and dress code, when they went down the main staircase twenty minutes later, Relena was waiting for them in the foyer, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt and hovering over a box of pepperoni pizza.

"My teleconference is done, my pizza is ready, and you two are being slow!" she declared.

"I'm sorry," Wufei stuttered.

Duo rolled his eyes. "We're early."

"I'm having a beer tonight, too," Relena declared. "I feel I owe it to myself. Running the world, I can do. Planning a wedding is hard!"

Duo followed Relena through a series of hallways and into a small living room, gently tugging the still-gawking Wufei along with him. "I wouldn't know. I've never done it."

He realized the stupidity of his flippant words the moment they left his mouth, and winced. Wufei dropped his hand, looking a little self-conscious.

Relena seemed to sense the sudden tension and handled it with practiced ease. "Could you grab some napkins, please? They should be in the cabinet over there. Is this your first time on Earth, Wufei?"

"Yes."

Duo met Wufei's eyes and held a napkin out to him, apologizing with his eyes.

Wufei seemed to accept the apology, because his body language relaxed and he sat on the couch across from Relena. "Is it really that obvious?"

"Gravity on the colonies is different. You walk like you're a little surprised to come down to the ground." She winked. "I had the worst time when I went up to L-4 for my first formal occasion; my hairspray just wasn't up for the challenge. And you can't imagine my reaction the first time I stepped onto a scale." She deftly pulled a large slice of pizza from the box and caught the cheese strands on her finger before guiding the tip into her mouth.

"Keep in mind," Duo added in, helping himself to a piece, "this was before she was the calm and collected person she is today. Her screams could probably be heard on L-3."

"As far as L-1. At least, according to Zechs. Scientists swear up and down that the artificial gravity is only a mite heavier than Earth's, but I say nay, nay." She took another bite. "Good lord, there's nothing in this world quite like a good, greasy pizza."

Wufei sniffed it delicately and took a small bite. "It's... spicy."

Relena nodded. "That's because it's fresher here. Space food is pretty bland, even the fresh produce."

Wufei coughed. "The pepperoni is... very different."

Duo laughed and reached over to snitch some off Wufei's slice, popping it into his mouth and humming appreciatively. "Is it too much for your delicate taste buds?"

Wufei shot him a dirty look. "Just because you drowned your taste buds in grease years ago..."

Duo refused to be dissuaded. "It's not written anywhere that you have to like pepperoni, Fei. You don't want it? Pick it off."

"I'm sorry Wufei," Relena said contritely as Wufei began to do just that, "I should've asked what you like on your pizza."

"I wouldn't have known," Wufei assured her, handing his stack of pepperoni to Duo. "So please don't worry about it."

Duo popped the offending meat into his mouth and proceeded to destroy the evidence. "Next time we'll get anchovies."

Wufei looked like he wanted to stick his tongue out at Duo, but not in front of the Queen of the World. Duo waggled his eyebrows at him, folded the remainder of his slice in half, and shoved it in his mouth.

"Pig," Wufei sniffed, and took another bite. Duo and Relena didn't bother to stifle their laughter, especially as Relena began on her third slice.

"So, how did you two meet?" Relena licked the sauce off her finger and eyed the box of pizza, calculating.

"Laundry," Duo said around his mouthful of food, at the same time that Wufei said, "Biology."

"The biology of laundry?" Relena suggested dryly, and gave in to the urge to eat another small piece.

"He was wet and naked and people were laughing." Wufei calmly took another bite of pizza. "How could I refuse?"

Relena raised her eyebrows.

"I was not naked," Duo protested.

Wufei continued as if Duo hadn't spoken. "He was trying to do his laundry without tokens. After I clothed him and did his laundry, I taught him the basic principles of mitosis."

Relena nodded her approval. "Very charitable of you, Wufei."

"I was not naked," Duo said again, a little louder. "I was wearing boxers."

"It was like saving a little puppy... except the puppy would've appreciated it more."

Duo waited until he'd finished his pizza before tackling him, all to the sound of Relena's laughter.

* * *

Heero, as Relena predicted, wasn't terribly impressed by his fiancee's idea of dinner.

"Did you eat salad?" he greeted her.

"Hello, honey," she responded, pecking him on the cheek. "How was your day? Mine was wonderful. And no, I didn't." She bodily turned him toward Duo and Wufei. "And look who arrived today, dear. Duo and his friend Chang Wufei."

"Hn," Heero responded, but reached out to shake hands. "Hello, Chang. Duo. You're looking well."

"Yeah, the two minutes of sun I've gotten so far today have done wonders for my complexion." Duo shifted his weight from one foot to another, feeling guilty about the pizza and unsure why. He could feel Wufei's eyes on the side of his face, telling him to behave, but before he could press the issue, Wufei was shaking Heero's hand.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir," Wufei said. "I mean, Yuy. I mean--"

Duo could see the wince in Heero's slow blink. "Just call me Heero. Please."

Duo thought there was more than a touch of pleading in that "please," and wondered what Relena's politicians had taken to calling the ex-pilot of Wing Zero.

"O-of course," Wufei stuttered a little. "And, Wufei. I mean, call me Wufei."

"I usually do," Duo remarked.

"I wasn't talking to you," Wufei said, but seemed to relax a little.

There was a moment of silence as the three men gauged each other. Relena took advantage of the pause to slip away into a different room, taking the pizza box with her.

"How was the flight?" The words seemed to be almost forcefully dragged from Heero's mouth, though it wasn't as bad as Duo'd seen before.

"Long," he responded, then took pity on Heero's awkwardness. "We got up at some ungodly hour and flew nonstop. And Noin drank almost all the coffee on the jet. Other than that, not too bad."

Heero scratched the thumb of his left hand with his index finger, something Duo belatedly recognized as a sign of nervousness. Heero's voice, however, betrayed none of it. "You're going to be a man of honor."

Duo and Wufei exchanged a glance. Duo finally managed to reply, "Thanks. I think."

Relena appeared in the doorway, pizza box mysteriously gone, and rolled her eyes behind Heero's back. "He means 'groomsman.' And it's a question."

Heero narrowed his eyes and looked back at his fiancee, who'd managed to slip from the room again before receiving the look. Not, Duo guessed, that it'd do Heero any good.

"Yes." Heero shifted on his feet, turning back to Duo. "Do you accept?"

"Gee, I'm getting all teary-eyed. I'm so emotional. Does anyone have a tissue?" Duo fanned his face, feeling somehow trapped. "I don't have a tux."

Heero rolled his eyes. "I've got five. I'll lend you a few."

"We'll have him fitted," Relena put in as she passed by the door in the hallway again. "The wedding party has to match, or the fashion pages will flay the flesh from my bones and hang it out for the crows to pick at."

Heero's long-suffering sigh left Duo feeling strangely claustrophobic: there he was, next to his boyfriend, standing in a room and facing an old coworker who, while more relaxed than Duo had ever seen him (including when Heero had been drugged up on painkillers, antidepressants, and the ever-wonderful morphine), was blocking the only exit to the room. A chill crawled up his spine on little scorpion legs, and a sudden rush of the jitters made him clench his hand in a fist.

"Sounds great. Excellent. Maybe tomorrow, okay guys? But right now I think I'm kind of dead, you know how it is, sleeping on those jets, and so I'm just going to head up to my room. Don't wait up for me, lovebirds!" The words still streaming from his mouth, Duo breezily blew past Heero and Relena out in the hall and made for the main stairway.

Behind him, he could hear Wufei making calmer, more appropriate good nights to his famous hosts. Instead of stopping to wait, Duo walked faster, jogging up the stairs two at a time as he felt his heart race and his mind hop erratically. Wedding--so much to do --people--Heero--anger--past--Quatre--tea time--Meiran--wedding--marriage--oh god, _married_ \--Christmas--Wufei--school--war-- _til death do us part_ \--

Wufei must've been running, because it was a hand on his arm that finally broke through Duo's cluttered thoughts. "Wait up!"

Duo took a deep breath, and then another, and let himself slow to a stop next to the wall. He hissed out his breath slowly, trying to order his thoughts. "What's the sound of two worlds colliding?"

Wufei came to a stop next to him, close but not touching. "Evidently a description of the reporting habits of tabloid journalists."

"That's not me." Duo met Wufei's gaze intently, feeling jittery. "I'm not that person."

Wufei tipped his head to the side, a few strands of hair coming loose from his ponytail to touch his shoulder. "You're not a person to be in a wedding?"

"I'm not someone he knows," Duo said, trying to make sense of it all. "Or if I am, then I'm not someone that you know. Maybe I really am someone they know, and you just know someone my mind made up."

"I don't think your mind made you up." Wufei rested one tentative hand on Duo's shoulder, regarding him warily. "And I don't see why you couldn't be both."

"I just can't," Duo replied. He felt desperate, and suddenly raw.

Wufei didn't voice his confusion, thankfully. "Let's go to bed." Wufei squeezed Duo's shoulder and turned purposefully back to the hall, searching for the second set of stairs that would lead them to their room. "It's been a long day."

Duo slipped his hand into Wufei's escaping one and let himself be led. "I think it's been, like, three."

"Did I tell you I'm up for sainthood?"

"Could be interesting. I've never dated a saint before."

* * *

Duo woke up the next morning just in time to head through the door connecting their two rooms to watch Wufei do his morning kata. As he lay on Wufei's bed, curled up and dozing through Wufei's routine in the little space they'd managed to clear for it, he was comforted by the fact that at least he had this much of Wufei--this early part, where Wufei was sweating and smelly and still sporting morning breath. He sighed into the pillow that Wufei'd slept on last night and let his breathing slowly fall into place.

He didn't realize he'd dozed off until he was awake again, Wufei sitting next to him, fresh from the shower and rubbing his arm. "You finished," he accused somewhat half-heartedly.

"Yes, about forty-five minutes ago," Wufei responded lightly, pushing his still-wet hair back from his face. "I had time to warm down, do some stretches, shower, brush my teeth, and dress. Would you care to indulge in some personal hygiene before we go downstairs?"

Duo wrinkled his nose. "Why? Do I smell bad?"

The expression that met him was one of abject horror. "Duo, you shower before dining with the Queen of the World. It's only polite."

A drop of water collected at the tip of a strand of Wufei's hair and dripped onto Duo's arm; Duo rubbed the damp into his arm and decided it was too much work to argue with Wufei this early in the morning. "If you say so." He leaned up to collect a kiss before rolling off of Wufei's bed and heading toward the shower.

Sharing a bathroom with Wufei was intimate in a strange way. Wufei's pills on the counter next to his toothbrush and his toothpaste, Wufei's shampoo and soap sitting neatly next to his razor.

There was a decidedly delicious thrill that ran through Duo when he realized he was about to shower in the exact same stall that was still wet from Wufei's shower--about to be naked in the same place Wufei had just been naked, and soapy, and Duo didn't want to embarrass himself with Wufei standing just outside the door, so he ignored his morning wood and had himself a cold shower.

* * *

It was only 8:30 in the morning by the time Duo and Wufei were ready to head out to breakfast, but Duo felt like he'd slept through the day. It was--he checked his watch--midafternoon at Tienen-U, and he wrinkled his nose, thinking about how much the jet lag on the return trip was going to suck.

Erma appeared from around the corner after they'd taken only a few steps outside their rooms to lead them to the breakfast nook, where Relena and Heero were already waiting. Heero, head bent over a newspaper, gave them a grunt and a nod. Relena was a bit more welcoming.

"Good morning Duo, Wufei! I'm surprised to see you up and about so early." She gestured to the tray by the wall. "Help yourself."

"We were done sleeping, anyway," Duo replied as he and Wufei moved toward the cart.

"Good morning, Relena," Wufei said with a smile.

The breakfast cart was more of a small, three-layered table on wheels containing cereals, bagels, hard boiled eggs, pancakes, waffles, assorted fruits, bread for toasting, danishes, and things Duo didn't bother to identify. He got himself a bagel and a glass of orange juice and headed for the table, leaving Wufei to fend for himself.

"I can't believe it's almost Christmas already!" Relena sipped her coffee. "I still feel like I've forgotten something."

"You haven't forgotten anything," Heero said, in a tone that implied he'd already said it four times and anticipated having to say it several more. "We've planned for every eventuality."

"Thank you, honey," Relena said dryly. "But I'm not referring to the security measures. I'm sure you have a plan for every eventuality."

"Like ninjas dropping out of the sky," Duo put in.

Heero grunted in agreement and turned the page.

Duo glanced over at Wufei's plate as Wufei sat down. It appeared Wufei had decided to try a bit of everything. Duo made a solemn promise to himself to snitch food from Wufei's plate. "What's the plan for today?" he asked after he'd taken a bite of his bagel. Wufei kicked him under the table--Duo assumed it was for speaking to the Queen of the World with his mouth full--but dutifully waited for the answer.

"Well, Quatre will be over tomorrow in the morning," Relena said. "We're going to bake cookies. Trowa will be here tomorrow evening for dinner. Meiran said she wasn't sure if she could make it tomorrow for dinner, but she'll be here on Christmas for sure, with Une and Sally. Milliardo will be here too, with Noin. You've met my brother, right, Wufei?"

Wufei nodded. "Yes, he met us at the airport. He seemed very nice."

Duo was surprised Wufei'd heard anything after the word Meiran, but tried not to visibly reveal his nervousness. "He looks good. Peace agrees with him."

"Thank god for small favors," Relena said. "After all his activity in the war, I was afraid he would have a bit more difficulty settling down."

"Yeah," Duo said with a smile. "I'm surprised he's as settled down with Noin as he is."

Relena snorted, delicately buttering a scone. "He's hardly 'settled.' They have what he likes to call an 'arrangement.'"

"Noin may've mentioned it." Duo stirred cream into his coffee. " _Ad nauseum._ "

"Are they..." Wufei picked at a muffin as he tried for delicacy, "...engaged?"

Relena shrugged. "They'll probably get married eventually, but I don't think they have any firm plans. For now, I think he's actually enjoying his status as a playboy."

Wufei said weakly, "But he's a prince."

Relena sighed. "Please, don't remind him. He'll only use it to his advantage."

* * *

It turned out they had actual errands to run and things to do on their vacation--like, for instance, Duo's tux. Now that he was actually in the wedding (he didn't recall agreeing to be a groomsman, but Heero handed him his To-Do list as if it were the parameters for a mission, and it was just easier to go and do than to argue semantics), and with Christmas only two days away, he and Wufei dressed in their warmest clothes and one of Relena's chauffeurs took them to the mall in a town car.

The press of people at the mall was suffocating. Even in the midst of Tienen University, L-4 was comparatively spacious and civilized. On Earth, two days before Christmas, the crowds were thick and the atmosphere tense. Duo, accustomed to overpopulation and crowds through his childhood on L-2 and his time on Earth during the war, surveyed the map and tried to ignore Wufei's death grip on his arm.

"Where did all these people come from?" he hissed. "Don't they have anything better to do?"

"It's Christmas in America, Wu," Duo said absently as he noted that the shoe store was all the way across the mall from the tux rental place. "These are the dicks who let things go until the last minute." Also, he realized, he should probably get the happy couple some sort of wedding present.

They picked their way through the mall, Wufei clutching close and stopping wide-eyed in front of various stores. "Is that a store just for coffee?" he asked, his tone a combination of awe and disgust.

"Basically," Duo replied, giving up and tucking Wufei's arm in his.

"What is the point?" Wufei blinked. "Does that store just sell candles?"

"Oh look," Duo said and steered them toward Traverse Goods. "They sell globes. That would make a good wedding present for the couple that can buy anything, right? It will be like a visual reminder that they own the world."

"Why does this store have so much stuff?" Wufei asked as they stopped in front of a display of old-fashioned globes. "Why don't people just order what they need online and get it delivered?" He pointed at a clock embedded in a wooden statue of a dog. "Who needs this?"

"You're talking to a guy who owns more textbooks than underwear," Duo responded and picked up a globe. "I've lived at Tienen longer than anywhere else I've lived in my life. If it isn't clothes or school books or a giant death robot, I haven't owned it."

"Is that a statue of an ostrich?" Wufei asked. "Why would anyone want that?"

Duo was frankly surprised Wufei had heard of ostriches, but since he was pointing at a statue of something vaguely reptilian, Duo guessed he hadn't heard very much. "Let's just buy this globe and get out of here," Duo said.

* * *

They managed to make their way to all the places on their list, though it took them three times as long as Duo had predicted. They escaped with Duo's purchases, and Duo knew his and Wufei's nerves were strained from the trip.

"Let's never do that again," Wufei said, his hair and eyes both a bit wild.

"I think I forgot shoes," Duo said, drained. "Maybe I'll just go barefoot."

Wufei cast a leery look toward the mall. "I don't understand how people live here."

"People don't live in the mall, Wu," Duo said absently as he rummaged through one of his bags for his gloves.

Wufei shook his head. "No, I mean... this city. This planet. There's so much space, but everyone lives crammed together. There's so much more space in space."

Duo shrugged. "Not everywhere is as nice and spacious as L-4. There's lots of people packed on some of the outer colonies... and L-2 was full enough not to feel homey. I mean, you gotta be pretty full to have kids living on the streets."

"Kids live on the streets on L-2?" Wufei asked, surprised. "Like... homeless? They have orphanages for that."

Duo shrugged again. "Not enough." He looked up to the sky, squinting as if to pick out the shape of L-2 in the clouds. "I don't remember having much of a home, myself, before or after the orphanage. Only people, and the people were never around for long." Duo felt a hand on his, and allowed Wufei to turn his hand and lace their fingers together.

"You were homeless?" Wufei asked quietly, like the concept was foreign to him.

"All my life," Duo replied. "Come on, let's figure out where we parked."

"Duo," Wufei started, and Duo didn't wait to find out if it was a protest or the beginning of something longer.

"Look," he said, pulling his cross out from under his shirt. "This is the only thing I have from my childhood. That's it. That and my scars and I could write a book on death. I never knew parents, I don't have a family, but I'm doing just fine on my own."

"Duo." This time Wufei sounded lost, so Duo dredged up a tired smile.

"I'm doing just fine." He squeezed Wufei's hand. "Wufei. I'm fine. I'm attending university, I'm dating the most attractive guy on campus, I even eat a vegetable on occasion. I'm doing better than most my age."

Duo would've stood up, moved away, but Wufei pressed in closer, pulled Duo's face down to his. The steam from their breaths intermingled as Wufei pressed his lips to Duo's, softly. "You eat lots of vegetables," he said when he broke the chaste kiss.

"Sure," Duo said stupidly. The last time Wufei kissed him in public, in the light where people could see, was in the coffee shop after the assembly; since then, he'd remained friendly, with the most intimate contact a touch on his arm or a hidden grasp of hand. Duo felt his heart pound as he studied Wufei's dark eyes. It was with a sudden rush of terror that Duo realized they would be meeting Meiran in a few days--meeting with Meiran, and what if Wufei decided he had to take her back? What if she decided she wanted him back? Duo felt suddenly sick, nausea rearing up. He clenched at Wufei's hand, hard, and pushed the terror back with practiced ease. A little fear keeps you sharp, he reminded himself; a knife of terror in the gut can bleed you out. He gave Wufei a lazy smile, relaxed his grip on Wufei's hand, and turned back toward the parking lot.

"So," he said. "Where did we agree to meet Pierre the chauffeur?"

"His name is Pietro," Wufei responded automatically, "and it was over by the statue of the giant pig."

They headed back toward the statue in question, and Duo proceeded to explain to Wufei the difference between a giant pig and a hippopotamus. Wufei let the conversation drop with apparent reluctance.

* * *

After they had returned to the Manor and deposited their purchases in their suite, they set out to find their hosts. A busy servant took a few minutes to direct them to Relena's office, where she was taking her tea and ranting loudly to anyone who would listen.

"I have a wedding to plan, a fiance to dress, Christmas to host, and a planet to run, but do you think they could bring me a cup of caffeinated coffee?" she asked them as they walked through the door. "They're worried about my blood pressure? Why don't they worry about where the foreign ministers are going to sit?"

"Relena," Duo said carefully. "This is why you hire a wedding planner."

Relena huffed and poured them tea. "Strangely enough, there is no one with the unique qualifications of 'flower chooser' and 'political savant' available to herd all the cats for me. There are some things that just require my personal touch. Besides, I understand it's tradition for brides to spend sleepless nights working on a seating arrangement for the banquet."

"What about Zechs?" Duo asked.

Relena snorted in response. "That's rich."

"May I see?" Wufei asked, and leaned over the poster diagram. She had the tables outlined on the poster with markers placed around them, and Duo was eerily reminded of strategy planning meetings from during the war. "What if you put the minister of France next to China? Then you could put..." He rearranged a few of the pieces.

"Yes, except the minister of France is a 62-year-old man, while China's delegate is an 18-year-old woman," Relena said. "But we could put her over by India..."

"With the current crisis in the north there?" Wufei asked, and Relena cursed.

Duo tuned out the discussion, turning his contemplation to the tea. He watched the iridescent film swirl on the top of his tea, and his eyes flickered up to the doorway just before a servant passed in the hallway.

"Duo," Relena said, breaking his reverie, "why don't you head down to the study and help Heero? I think Wufei and I can manage here just fine."

Wufei sent him a look of combined panic and pride, and Duo stood. "Will you guys be okay?"

Wufei waved him off, and Duo followed her instructions out of the room, down the hall, and into a small study. In it, a simple empty Christmas tree stood in the corner while Heero stared at it. Several boxes of red glass balls sat on the table next to him, open. He turned as Duo entered, grunting a greeting.

"Need help?" Duo asked.

Heero considered for a moment and nodded. "Go ahead."

Duo gently picked up a delicate ball, slipped a hook onto it, and placed it on the tree. They both stared at it on the tree for a moment, assessing, before Duo returned for another. Then another, and another, and another, and finally Duo stopped, staring at the delicate ball in his hand.

He exhaled suddenly, swiftly, and before he had a chance to second guess himself he was already throwing the glass ball at the wall. It hit brick and shattered, shards falling to the floor. It felt good, so he threw another, and a third. The glass made gentle tinkling noises, and he gripped a fourth ball too tightly in his hand and glanced over at Yuy. With a touch of defiance, he threw the ball he was holding at the wall.

Heero studied him. "Anxious about Christmas?"

"Don't be an idiot," Duo said. "I'm the destroyer of worlds. I am death." _Til death do us part._

"I hate Christmas," Heero said stiffly. Duo was rather surprised Heero had any feelings whatsoever about the season. Heero lowered himself to the ground next to Duo, gingerly. The entire conversation was probably giving him hives. "But Relena likes it. Says it reminds her of her childhood."

Even after knowing Heero for so many years, Duo didn't know anything about his childhood. Duo was sure Heero had a perfectly researched file locked away on each of the pilots and was therefore already well-acquainted with his life story; still, he didn't feel the need to comment on his own limited Christmas experiences, his own limited sense of "home, family, safety."

"Quatre thinks you're sick," Heero offered finally, and Duo thought maybe he could see where this was going.

"Quatre can go fuck himself," Duo said. "I always thought you were the robot. You or Trowa. Sometimes Mei." He slid to the floor, still holding one last glass ball cupped in his hand. "But he's the one who's dead inside."

Heero looked uncomfortable. "You never said what happened out on the Vega."

Duo examined the glass ball, feeling the smooth slide of it against his fingers. He let Heero's words slide over him; his face and skin were as smooth as glass, slippery. His smile was polished through practice, like a politician's, and Duo had learned to control every muscle in his face just like Heero: where Heero rarely showed any emotion, Duo rarely released honest ones. Wufei read him, he knew dumbly, like he was a goddamn book--

He felt cool pressure at his side and moved without thinking. _One hand on Quatre's wrist, pointing the hand gun at the ceiling; one hand at his throat, pushing him back, pinning him against the wall, and Duo found himself squeezing in a way he never had. He took a deep breath, feeling the cold of steel and the rough iron behind him, the heavy munitions in his hand_ \--but no, that was flesh in his hand, the soft firmness of wiry muscle and bone. Heero stared back at him, eyes full of emotion, and Duo realized suddenly he had one of Heero's wrists pinned to the bookshelf behind them and his fingers wrapped around Heero's neck. Heero was calmly letting him push, letting him hold him down, and Duo let go, shrank away.

Heero rubbed his neck slowly. "You're having flashbacks, then."

"The war is over," Duo said. He looked at his hands, still stunned from the attack.

"Does this happen a lot?" Heero asked, and Duo hadn't known his voice could get gentle like that.

"You don't talk about this," Duo whispered and stood. His voice was rough, and he craved the solitude of Wufei and their suite two floors up. He craved the awful prudishness of Tienen-U, the wry sincerity of Jordan, the mundane repetitive nature of class, homework, tests. "You don't talk about this with nobody."

"Accepted," Yuy said, and they finished the tree in silence.

* * *

Meiran sat heavily in the chair facing Une's desk. Raising one hand to her mouth, she stifled a yawn the best she could. "I think we're even busier around the holidays. Why don't terrorists observe holidays?"

Sally put her feet up on Une's desk, ignoring Une's not-so-subtle noises of discouragement as she rubbed the arch of her bare stocking foot against Une's round glass paperweight. "Could we please stop talking about work for five minutes?"

"You're making my desk smell like feet," Une said crossly, but with little energy.

Sally crossed her arms behind her head to help prop it up; Meiran admired how she completely ignored Une's gagging noise. "I want to know what everyone's wearing to Christmas With the Peacecrafts."

"You mean Relena's Crazy Christmas Reunion," Meiran said. She kicked off one of her shoes and let her feet join Sally's up on the desk. Une made more grumbly noises. "With all of your favorite Gundam Pilots crammed into one house."

"A regular comedy of errors," Sally said lazily. "Personally, I can't wait. But, spill. Clothes, girls."

"Are we really talking about clothes?" Une asked. "Have we stooped so low?"

"I bought a blue dress," Sally said. "It's dark and it sparkles. Because if I don't sparkle, I'll never attract anyone's attention."

"You'll never attract anyone's attention because you work eighty hours a week," Une said. "And all the men we've hired are fresh-faced and eager-eyed and not worth your time."

"Bah," Sally moaned at the ceiling.

"Not. Worth. Your. Time," Une repeated for emphasis.

Meiran grunted and wished fervently that Une kept brandy in her office. Of course, if she did, the three of them would probably never leave the Preventers' HQ. "Black," she offered when Sally began kicking her foot repetitively.

"Tell me it's not a pantsuit," Sally begged. "Please."

"Dress," Meiran said. "And heels." Sally raised her eyebrows, and Meiran narrowed her eyes back at her.

"I'm not going," Une said with a yawn.

"What?" Sally said, sitting up a little straighter. "Don't be ridiculous, of course you're going. Chang's wearing heels."

"They only invited me to be polite," Une said. "And someone has to be here to work the phones because the terrorists, as we know, don't observe holidays."

"I hate terrorists," Meiran mused.

Sally rolled her eyes. "Don't be ridiculous, Une. Everyone's invited because of politics. It's a Peacecraft party. You were invited because Heero admires your deft political maneuvering."

"Also," Meiran pointed out, "this is why we got the emergency phone. So people can call us when we're not in the office. If someone needs us, we'll deal with it then."

"You aren't allowed to wear a suit, either," Sally said. "Follow Chang's strangely out of character example."

Une winced. "I really just don't want to go."

Meiran grinned. "Oh, trust me. You'll want to go."

Une raised her eyebrows at Meiran. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

Meiran let her smile turn mysterious. "You'll have to show up to find out, won't you?"

"Is this about Maxwell?" Sally asked her. "Were you guys," she gestured something vaguely obscene, "during the war--"

Meiran simply kept her smile mysterious. "You'll just have to show up, I expect. Or you'll never know."

"I hate you," Une said fervently.

"No suits," Sally repeated. "No one can wear a suit."

"I want a margarita," Meiran said, wistful.

"I want to never move again," Une groaned.

"I want to prescreen your outfits," Sally said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"Twas Christmas in the trenches  
>  And the frost so bitter hung  
> The frozen fields of France were still  
> No Christmas song was sung..."_
> 
> \- from "Christmas in the Trenches" by John McCutcheon


	8. Interlude One:  The Empty Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Years before the start of IISD, Duo and Quatre are stuck on the transporter Vega.

The war should've been over years ago. Duo knows that by now. It should've never begun, but begin it did and continue it has. Duo eyes the Oz troops loitering around the docking bay from his place in the rafters and gently touches his radio. "Q, there's like nine gazillion people here. We're totally fucked. It's gonna be hairy, getting out of here before they reach L-1, and we're probably looking at a week at this rate."

Quatre's voice over the comm comes from far away. He sounds as tired as Duo feels, which is odd because Duo's pretty sure Quatre's been napping in the storage closet they commandeered instead of foraging for food. "How many is 'nine gazillion'?"

"Two-hundred and twelve," Duo translates. "But they're big fuckers, and there's a guy with a mustache who has a fancy hat. I bet his ship vroom-vrooms faster, too. Probably compensating for something." He takes a moment to re-examine the main floor. "Q, I think he has a monocle. Who the fuck wears a monocle?"

Quatre sighs. "You might as well come back so we can figure out what to do."

"Roger that," Duo says, and makes his nimble way back across the beam. One Oz soldier is apparently so bored he's kicking a wall, and Duo would pity him if he had a meal in his belly and if Oz weren't trying to kill him. It's an easy trip back through the duct system and vents to the storage room he and Q have holed up in, and Duo slides through the vent in the ceiling to land next to Q. Q still has his laptop open, tracing the building plans.

"Find any food?" Duo asks as his stomach rumbles loudly.

Quatre shakes his head, but does not take his eyes from the computer screen. "Nothing but that last MRE."

Fuck, Duo thinks, and rips the package open. "We'll share."

When they snuck onto the Vega, back on the far outer reaches of the L-5 cluster, the mission had been a simple in-and-out gig: grab the engine coil, lift some sensitive intel, and get out. They started out on light rations two weeks back when it became obvious that the intel they needed was stored somewhere not on the mainframe and sneaking out was going to be infinitely more complicated than sneaking in, and extra-light three days ago when they realized there was no way to restock their quickly-dwindling supply while maintaining their invisibility; Duo tightened his belt and tried to force himself to eat more slowly, but years on the streets have taught him to bolt food before someone else takes it, and hearty meals have not yet eased him out of his overprotectiveness. Quatre, raised with fame, fortune, silver spoons, and cornucopias of plenty, has struggled more to go without these past weeks. Duo has seen him considering the kitchens more than once, but for an OZ ship they keep their food amazingly well guarded. Duo wonders if the Vega has had trouble with soldiers stealing rations in the past, because this level of protectiveness over their food borders on neurotic. Alone, Duo might chance it, but even before the recent publicity about Winner Corp, Q and his aristocratic accent stick out like a sore thumb. It occurs to Duo that the hanger is less protected than the kitchens, and how fucked up is that?

He and Quatre sit next to each other, eating their half-a-bean-burrito silently. Quatre has been different on this mission, Duo notices, and forces himself to chew his beans more slowly. Duo notices sometimes that Q's eyes have taken on a flatness--something intense but smooth. He's seen it more lately, as their food supplies dwindles and more medical personnel enter the transport. Duo just hopes they can find some way into the kitchens for a meal and make their way off the Vega soon.

"We have to get out of here," Quatre finally says.

"Betcha we can steal Mr. Monocle's penis ship." Duo licks the last bits of beans off his fingers, then watches with utter disbelief as Quatre uses his handkerchief to clean food bits off his finger tips. Duo eyes the discarded napkin and seriously considers licking it.

Quatre doesn't respond to Duo's staring, which weirds him out just a little more. "We need to stop the Vega," he argues. "I've been going over the computer records, and we're headed for the battle zone just outside the L-1 cluster."

"This group doesn't strike me as top-notch enemy combatants," Duo says, remembering the kid kicking the wall earlier. "I think they're just civilians in uniforms."

"The log shows an unusual number of medical professionals on this transport," Quatre says. "Plus, if we take out the Vega, OZ loses their main transport ship."

"The longer we wait, the harder it will be to get off this tub," Duo points out. "And unless you have some sort of magic plan where twenty-five scantily-clad virgins serve us five-course meals on fancy gold leaf china, I'm voting for getting off now and getting a burger."

"Duo, we're at war," Q says, and wow is his tone condescending. "We need to focus on what's important. We need to take this ship out."

Duo shakes his head. "Q, we'll need at least 4 days to gather the materials and place the charges in order to disable this baby from the inside. I've been all over this ship, and I can tell you four days is a best guess. I mean, not unless you just want to blow life support, but you'll kill all the oxygen, and with a ship this size you'll never get half the people off it."

"Hm," Quatre says, and for the next eighteen hours and twenty-seven minutes, Duo thinks that's agreement, which is how he finds himself surprised to be in the hallway near the main hangar bay staring at the life support system. The missile launcher Quatre handed him thirty minutes ago, back in their storage-closet-hideaway, is still slung across his back, extra ammo weighing down the cargo pocket by his knee.

Duo gives Quatre his best "you've gotta be shitting me" look and says, "So now what?"

After more than two weeks of light rations and no showers, Q looks grungy. His hair falls in greasy strings, there is a smudge of engine grease on his cheek, and his khakis are wrinkled. "The fewer OZ soldiers there are, the less manpower OZ will have and the shorter the war will be. So what we need to do is blow up the Vega before people start unloading."

"But these aren't soldiers," Duo says, worry and hunger gnawing at his belly as he stupidly stares at Quatre. "These are doctors."

"Doctors and reinforcements, all of whom are focused on killing us." Quatre stares at Duo intently, and Duo is reminded uncomfortably of Heero. "It's our job to take them out first."

"It's our job to get the hell out of here," Duo says. "Come back after we've had a pizza and like a week of sleep. We're not going to blow up a ship and kill a bunch of med techs just because someone handed them an OZ uniform and put them on an OZ ship."

"We kill people in battle all the time," Quatre says, and Duo is starting to feel uneasy. "This is just more efficient." Q makes the whole insane idea sound so reasonable, so logical.

Duo takes a step back, feels the metal bulkhead behind him as the world slows. "Look, we can't get the intel we're here to get. It's time to call an abort, plan a distraction, and steal the penismobile so we can get the hell out of Dodge."

Quatre's pistol pokes Duo in the ribs, and Duo thinks, well, shit. Apparently they're done negotiating.

"Is that your gun," Duo jokes, uncomfortable, "or are you just happy to see me?"

Quatre cocks his gun, jabs it harder into Duo's ribs. "You will stop arguing. You will blow the ship up now."

"Dude," Duo says, and raises his hands in a placating way, "Q. They're sleeping. We don't kill sleeping civilians, even when they play OZ dress-up and wear shiny OZ boots. We steal their fancy ships and eat whatever delicious things they've stored on them while we run away."

"And then what?" Quatre asks, voice hissing, and Duo is realizing Q is entirely serious. "We wait until they're armed and kill them? We wait for them to come back and blow up some more innocent colonies? Then I can feel the souls of more dying children, feel more innocents falling to their graves because OZ thinks it's a good idea?"

"Quatre," Duo says, and feels lightheaded. "They're medics. They ain't killers."

"They're still soldiers," Quatre says. "They signed up for this. They signed up to kill us, and to crush the colonies, and what we have right now is an opportunity to be proactive." He lets a quick breath out, sucks air in through his teeth. "Maybe you're happy fighting this war forever, Duo, but I have plans for my life."

"Hey," Duo protests. "I want this over as much as you do. I just happen to think that killing a bunch of medics isn't the way to go. I think maybe you just need a sandwich, and then we can talk things through."

"Weak," Quatre spits, and there's a muffled bang and Duo realizes, holy shit, Q just shot him.

"What the fuck?" Duo asks, hand to his thigh, holding the wound protectively, and, "What the FUCK?" Blood on his hands, his own blood, and of all the pilots he never expected Quatre would be the first one to actually shoot him. The wound is fleshy and Duo thinks probably Q missed his femoral artery but Duo isn't a doctor so who knows, maybe he's got minutes left to live.

The troops are already gathering and moving, moving toward the noise, guns drawn, and Duo is in some sort of shock where he has a fucking hole in his thigh because Quatre shot him.

"Do you think they'll hesitate to kill us?" Quatre asks, ruthless, and with a flash Duo recognizes the familiar cold in Q's eyes: the ZERO system strips away your inhibitions, makes you willing to do what it takes.

"You fucking shot me," Duo says, and the blood is coming out fast, he can't hold it in with his hands. He leans heavily against the wall, weight all on his right leg. I'm bleeding on the wall, he thinks.

"You will do this," Quatre says. "You'll do it now or I swear someone else will be piloting Deathscythe tomorrow."

"Fuck," Duo says, because time is up and OZ is here. The cold steel wall is to his back, the air is thick, his belly is empty, and the heavy munitions around his neck have never felt heavier. He looks at the environmental systems above them, the systems Duo knows so much better than Quatre--Duo steadies the gun, takes aim, and the rocket launches, destroying the oxygen tanks and air recyclers.

The explosion is deafening. The medics panic immediately, running, screaming, and Duo feels nauseated as Quatre pulls him through the smoke down toward Monocle's ship. Later, there is very little Duo will remember of the mad dash into the hanger: oppressive heat with a growing inner cold, huge contrasts between blinding firelight and darkness, echoing screams and the clatter of boots racing along metal decks. Duo trips on an iron grate, feels the roughness and smells the salt of blood. The fire and the oxygen causes a chain reaction, another secondary explosion, and Quatre shoots the soldier in the ship and pilots them away.

"You've used the ZERO system, too," Quatre tells him later as Duo bandages his gunshot wound. Duo feels lightheaded, but there's half a candy bar waiting for him as soon as he finishes here. He focuses on the candy bar. The candy bar has peanuts. "You think this isn't inside you? You think you're innocent?"

Duo laughs bitterly. "Maybe I wasn't innocent, but I've never blown up a hospital before."

Quatre does something to the controls and the engines grow even louder. "The Vega wasn't a hospital. We didn't kill any patients."

"I don't understand," Duo says, voice thick. "With your empathy, how - ?"

"That's part of what the ZERO system was designed to do." Quatre glances back. "I can turn it off now. It's a big relief, to be honest. I'm no longer ruled by my emotions. You may want to use it a bit more. Chang could use some time, too, actually."

"That's sick." Duo ties the bandage off. "And stay away from Chang. She doesn't need your twisted new life philosophy."

"Chang is overflowing with unnecessary emotions," Quatre says, simply and so-fucking-logically. "She's completely exhausting. She can hardly eat breakfast without having some sort of passionate feeling about it. Imagine how the ZERO System could harness that energy." He checks his finger nails and picks at the dirt under them. "We are given these tools and expected to put them to good use. If you don't think you can, well... don't fancy yourself irreplaceable. I have it on good authority that they already have someone waiting in the wings."

Duo puts the gauze down carefully, pulls out his gun, and sights it on his friend. "Stay away from her," he says calmly, like he's the one on the fucking ZERO System now. He clicks off the safety and cocks it when Q looks like he'll talk again. "Or I swear to God I will blow your fucking brains out."

Quatre, long-suffering, rolls his eyes. "Oh Duo, quit the melodrama." As if Duo is complaining about the weather. Still, he turns away and drops the subject.

Duo lowers the gun slowly, flicks the safety on, and sticks it back in the waistband of his pants. He feels sick to his stomach, hollow and brittle, and wonders what they are becoming.

* * *

Two days later with a belly full of rations and two more sleepless nights under his belt, he surveys himself in the mirror and tries to see a reminder of the kid Sister Helen and Father Maxwell took in. His cross burns the middle of his chest. Would Father recognize me today, he wonders. It occurs to him that the child they knew, the one who loved Solo and who became Duo, was far more moral, far more human than the person he is today. This is what the ZERO system does, he thinks distantly. It takes you down, distills you back to your Zero, to your barest core value. This is the measure of the man, he thinks.

He raises the razor to his hairline and turns it on.


	9. Interlude Two:  Becoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes zero doesn't mean nothing. Another look into the past.

The first time Duo uses the Zoning and Emotional Range Omitted system, it is out of curiosity. He is in Deathscythe, preparing to skirmish with five Tauruses when he remembers the upgrades G recommended he steal. Their system works out well: G lets him know what software upgrades are ready to lift and Duo hacks into the computer system and takes them. He's just installed three new protocols and a monstrous file labeled only ZERO. Five Tauruses aren't anything Duo worries about when Deathscythe isn't in tip-top condition, so he figures now is as good a time as any to figure out what this ZERO thing does.

He runs the program with a couple taps of the keypad and time seems to stop. Space has never seemed so expansive, and so simple. He wonders why he feels distance from himself, from the approaching suits, and wonders if the ZERO program is some sort of morphine substitute.

A mobile suit moves on the port side of his cockpit, and seventeen logical responses immediately pop into his brain. Eighty-eight-point-two percent of those responses result in total annihilation of all OZ suits in the vicinity. In one of them, he destroys a nearby base as well. His fear is a far-distant thing, like maybe it's happening to someone else. He can feel his heartbeat settling, adrenaline calming.

"Oh fuck no," Duo says, and hits the self-destruct button.

* * *

Surviving the self-destruct is not one of the projected 17 scenarios. Still, two months later he is sitting shirtless on a cold metal table while Professor G listens to his heart and mutters vague things in German.

Duo has a respect for the strange doc. Any guy who would catch him trying to blow up his life's work only to suggest he steal it instead has gundanium balls. He knows G is eccentric, and he appreciates the guy's special brand of crazy.

"So that ZERO system program? The one you recommended and I uploaded into Shinigami?" Duo asks while G scribbles something onto a chart.

"Ya, ya," G says, and scribbles something else that looks like "cheese hatter rubble seven."

"What the fuck was that all about?" Duo asks, swinging his feet. G steps aside to avoid being kicked. "It made me feel like a robot. Are we letting our robot overlords make decisions now?"

G doesn't look up from his clipboard. "I am concerned for your stress levels. Lots of stress on your heart, brain."

Duo flexes his right hand, feeling the pull of healing tissues from a recent wrist sprain. "Can't you just send me some nice music? Maybe you could send me on a vacation. Oh, oh, I could use a massage." He points at G. "Those are excellent ways to help me relax! Thanks for thinking of me!"

"First you steal my mobile suit," G grumbles, pulling open the top drawer in a nearby desk and rooting through. "Now you expect me to send you on vacation."

"Well," Duo points out, "you're the one who's worried about my stress levels."

G tosses a few things on top of the desk, behind the desk, and a few items sail in the general vicinity of the trash can before he finally makes a noise of triumph and returns. He swabs some adhesive onto a silver disk roughly the size of a quarter and attaches it behind Duo's ear. "You haven't been trained for this," he says. "The G-forces, strain of war, the pressure of people relying on you for things outside your control-"

"I sound like a superhero. Do I have an action figure?" Duo asks.

G ignores him. "No human is meant to go through these things. We chose children as our pilots because of your good reflexes--" he slaps Duo on the bicep, "--and your mental flexibility!"

"I thought you chose me because I'm a little bastard," Duo said, rubbing his bicep and eyeing the professor. "And you didn't want me to blow up the hanger and kill us all."

G laughed. "Just so, just so! You have good instincts, and tough spirits... but all of that does not help your heart. You are too young for heart attacks. Come, come, try this now."

He toggles a small switch on the disk on Duo's neck. For a moment, Duo doesn't notice a difference. G stares at him expectedly; Duo stares right back, waiting. A calm settles over his mind, an almost zen state, and the two stare at each other.

"I don't get it," Duo says.

"Interesting," G replies and writes something down.

Rather than his normal curiosity or irritation at G's lack of information, Duo simply sits, patient. G pulls out the stethoscope again, and Duo realizes he can sense his own heart beat, the lull of his own breathing; they are slow and even.

"Look at this," G says after twenty minutes of nothing but poking him and making noises. He hands Duo a tablet with a battle simulation on it. "What do you do?"

"Blow the space station. It'll take out all the surrounding ships," Duo says.

"Eh?" G says, sounding surprised, but Duo isn't listening. "What about the lives?"

"Acceptable losses," Duo says, then considers G's question. Why would the professor ask him that? Duo knows that is not the choice he would usually make, and realizes that his emotions aren't functioning. At all. Destroying the space station is an efficient use of resources, and removing support for OZ makes sense when you don't care about potential innocents. He reaches up to the disk, turns it off, and feels a sudden rushing return of fear, anger, and disgust. His heart rate jumps. "What the fuck?"

"An upgrade of the ZERO system." G is making more notes on the file. "Low regards for civilian life... we didn't anticipate that."

"Back the fuck up, Professor," Duo says, and rips the notes from G's hands. "You just turned off my emotions."

G sighs. "We did not anticipate the war lasting this long. We did not anticipate the psychological cost. The soul."

Duo works his fingernails under the device and tears it off his neck. His skin burns where the adhesive rips away. "You didn't anticipate my soul?"

G has always reminded Duo of a rat: long nose, cunning eyes, sharp features, and his particular canny intelligence. He lets Duo know what to steal, emails him information, and always laughs when he hears about Duo's pranks and exploits. Now, his eyes are sad, and he pats Duo on the hand as if to say, "good boy. You're a good boy."

"I just want to make things easier, boy," G says. "Just a little easier."

Easier. Duo hears the word and examines the disk in his hand, turning it over with his fingers. There is a certain appeal to the system, the ease with which it allows you to sort through solutions, the way even things like fear and anger are pushed to the side. He bets the ZERO system would cut through the nightmares, pull back the curtain of blood from his dreams. You go to the doctor and get anesthetic before surgery, right? He thinks ZERO might be like that: just a gentle anesthetic to help him make the tough decisions. If OZ had ZERO, it's likely the entire army would be taking advantage of it.

But he also remembers why he agreed to steal Deathscythe originally. He remembers Sister plaiting his hair, and gently telling him, "It's okay to cry."

Duo slides off the bench, tosses the disc on the ground, and steps on it with the heel of his boot. He wiggles his heel until he feels the give of the casing and hears the undeniable crunch of delicate equipment. G makes a frustrated noise and stares down at the remains of the disc.

"War shouldn't be easy," Duo says. He tries not to be mad at G, but it's hard. "Killing people shouldn't be easy." He's always wondered: was it easy for people to destroy Maxwell's Church? Was that just a whim? Does anyone but him wake up with nightmares of dead priests, dead nuns bleeding and broken? "If you want to make things easier, make Shinigami's cloak last longer. Give my scythe some more juice. But don't fucking make me into a robot."

G glares at him. "Look, boy, this is a weapon just like any other--and obviously it needs some tweaking--"

"I choose what tech to steal," Duo says, and shrugs into his shirt. "Don't make any more of this shit. This is a bad idea. You don't get to turn off emotions just to make things easier. You don't get to stop feeling just so you can kill a few more people and sleep at night. Maybe you make faster decisions, maybe you make more efficient decisions-but it ain't right." He exhales. "If you're worried about my soul, well... this'll make me soulless."

G exhales on what might be a dark chuckle. "Fine, boy. But you take care of yourself, you hear?"

Duo pulls his cap on his head. "Roger that."

After he leaves, he spends five hours on his onboard computer and purges Deathscythe of any remaining hints of the ZERO system. The next time G sends him notice of an upgrade to steal, he deletes it sight-unseen. Whatever regard exists between them, whatever respect Duo has for the man's brilliance and daring and willingness to be an asshole, Duo knows there are lines they cannot cross. He runs his fingers over his long braid and decides that sometimes adults are not to be trusted with dangerous equipment.

Three weeks later, he and Q receive orders to board the OZ transport ship Vega and steal vital communiques kept in hard-copy somewhere by some high muckity-muck. "Piece of cake," Duo tells Quatre breezily.

"I hope you're right," Quatre replies.

* * *

Duo declares himself fit for duty two weeks after the Vega blows. He is only five pounds shy of his pre-Vega weight, not counting the loss of his hair. His thigh throbs occasionally, and his limp really isn't so bad. He dreams nightly of Sister's dead eyes staring out from Quatre's face, but mostly he is bored with sitting around and staring at Heero.

"Don't be an idiot," Heero tells him. "You're five pounds from adequate health. Start eating and stop complaining."

"I don't take orders from you," Duo points out, stuffing some clothes in a duffel.

"What does your contact say?" Heero asks, unfazed.

"I don't take orders from anyone," Duo returns, sharp and with a touch of menace.

Heero doesn't blink. "I say-"

" _I don't take orders from anyone,_ " Duo repeats, and his hand is on a gun. Stupid to challenge Heero like that, because he's not entirely sure where in Heero's spandex shorts he keeps his guns, but Duo will not submit without a fight and he doesn't know why people keep expecting him to.

Heero studies him for a moment and, for the first time since they met, backs down. "We leave in an hour."

* * *

Every time he shares a safehouse with Q, Duo meticulously goes through Quatre's things, looking for a small silver disk. He wonders what he will do if he finds it: Steal it? Hide it? Destroy it? Confront him? The idea makes his heart pound in his chest and his stomach churn like no battle has.

He sees it once while Quatre is pulling on his button-up shirt, nestled at the base of his neck and small enough to be a silver mole. Duo feels a rush of adrenaline, because this is it: the confrontation he's been dreading. When Quatre turns, a gentle smile on his face, Duo remains frozen, cold.

"Is something wrong, Duo?" Quatre asks. His expression is puzzled, open.

Duo wonders why he's the only one who asks the hard questions, who thinks about the implications of their tools, of their missions. He feels a sudden rush of anger, directed toward Quatre and Heero and Trowa and Mei and the doctors, and most of all himself. Why is he the one to carry this load? How dare they make him bear the moral implications of this war? The responsibility is like a weight on his chest, slowly smothering him.

"Don't do me any favors anymore," he replies. "Just leave me alone."

He can tell Q is shocked and confused at the cold reception, but Duo can't stop seeing dead eyes, feeling the heat of the explosion burning the top layer of his skin. He can't help but look at Quatre and think, that is the friend who shot me.

He can't wait for this war to end.


	10. Upon the Highest Bough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it's Christmas and there is love in the air, sometimes.

The Christmas morning festivities, at Relena's behest, were held in the study Duo and Heero had decorated. The tree sparkled in the corner with lights and glass balls and a few wrapped packages, and four stockings hung above the fireplace - in which a real fire crackled, with only a thin metal screen separating it from the room. Some industrious servant had cleaned up every shard of the broken glass and lit a few candles besides; the overall effect was cozy. By the time Duo and Wufei had arrived--at Wufei's insistence, showered, shaved, and re-dressed in clean pajamas--their hosts had already risen and were waiting. Relena lounged comfortably in her pink flannel pajamas, her hair back in a messy half-ponytail, while Heero in his brown robe glared at the wall over a cup of coffee.

"Don't mind him," Relena said as she stuffed a piece of toast dripping with jam into her mouth. "He's still on his first cup, and he's not human until his third."

"Is that the secret to Heero's humanity?" Duo mused, leaning back into Wufei's side. "Three cups of coffee?"

"No," Heero grunted, and stuck his nose in the cup. "It's the whole pot."

"Is it snowing outside?" Wufei asked with a yawn.

"It's left off for now," Relena said contentedly. "A shame, though. I love a good Christmas snow. Tea?"

Wufei accepted a cup of green tea and made the appropriate appreciative noises while Duo threw himself on the rug in front of the fire to feel the radiating heat on his skin. He turned to bring the dish of pastries onto the floor with him, ignoring Wufei's disapproving look as Wufei sat on the couch. Even so, Duo didn't hear a protest when he leaned back against Wufei's legs, and his boyfriend's hand rested briefly on his head.

"You know, this will be my first real Christmas," Duo said, and bit into his gooey pastry.

Heero poured himself another cup of coffee. "Then why did you always tell us what a Christmas was supposed to be like?"

Duo shrugged. "I always wanted one."

Heero grunted into his cup of coffee; when Duo glanced over, he could see him and Relena holding an intense conversation with their eyes. Heero cleared his throat, and, with the apparent reluctance that always accompanied Heero's forays into social niceties, turned to Wufei. "Have you had a Christmas before, Wufei?" He held his shoulders stiffly, and Duo wondered with a grin if he would ever be comfortable with "idle conversation."

Wufei shook his head. "We didn't celebrate in the L-5 cluster. Well, not where I'm from, originally."

Heero nodded and returned to his coffee; Relena rolled her eyes and apparently decided to give her fiance a break for Christmas. "You're from L-5?"

Duo could feel Wufei tensing behind him and put a hand on Wufei's ankle, squeezing gently.

"Yes," Wufei said. "Originally." Duo could feel the discomfort radiating off him.

"Let's open presents," Duo suggested, and stuffed the last of the pastry into his mouth.

"Of course," Relena agreed gently, obviously realizing her innocent question had sparked a strong response. "I'm dying to find out what practical item Heero got me this year."

"I said I was sorry about the vacuum," Heero said, voice muffled by his coffee cup. "But I make no apologies for Cindy."

"My new security detail," Relena told Duo and Wufei. "She's very sweet, and very short. He tied a bow around her."

"Have I ever put a bow on anything I've given you?" Heero sounded almost insulted at the idea. "I don't tie bows."

"Heero's knot work was never as good as Trowa's," Duo teased, and rooted through the packages under the tree to liberate one for Relena.

Heero grunted again, and Duo grinned; he was pretty sure Heero was recalling the same incident he was.

* * *

With brunch under their belts and presents unwrapped, the lazy part of Christmas was finally trickling to an end, and 2:00--when the guests were scheduled to begin arriving--was nearing.

"How fancy should we dress?" Duo asked Relena.

"Not too fancy," she said as she admired the pearl bracelet Heero got her. "It'll just be an intimate gathering."

"Wear a suit," Heero grunted as he reassembled the weapon he'd gotten from Duo. Relena laid a restraining hand on his wrist as an obvious hint to put his guns away, but he worked through it. Duo wondered if Relena could disassemble and reassemble her own 9MM yet, and if Heero had made her practice in the dark.

"A suit's not fancy?" Duo asked, half incredulous, half unsure.

"No tails." Heero finished reassembling his gun and cocked it, aiming it at the wall.

Duo and Wufei exchanged glances. Duo hoped Wufei had brought a sweater he could borrow.

* * *

Back in the privacy of their suite, Wufei had both a button-down shirt and a sweater he could borrow.

"Really?" Duo asked as he buttoned the shirt. He sat on the edge of Wufei's bed and extended his arms in front of him. The sleeves were a little short, but it smelled of Wufei. Duo supposed he could deal with shorter sleeves. "Don't you think a sweater is overkill?"

"Try not to be embarrassing," Wufei begged as he brushed what Duo thought could only be microscopic lint off his suit. "Don't insult the Prime Minister."

Duo didn't ask which Prime Minister he was supposed to not insult; he was pretty sure the answer would be "any of them." "What if I'm too hot?" Duo discretely sniffed the sweater while Wufei examined the shine on his shoes. "And why on earth would anyone voluntarily wear a suit on Christmas? How does that make a fun party?"

"What do people talk about on Earth?" Wufei asked suddenly. "What if I don't know what to say?"

"Just talk about the weather," Duo advised. "The weather or the food. And everyone else will just talk about what Relena is wearing, or how sweater vests aren't in anymore. Talking about stupid, pointless things is how you get through a party like this."

"Stop fretting about the sweater and just put it on," Wufei told him crossly. "And I don't know how to talk about the weather."

"You worry way too much," Duo told him, and tossed the sweater on Wufei's bed. "Wanna make out before the party?"

"You'll wrinkle my suit," Wufei protested weakly as Duo reeled him in to stand between Duo's legs.

"Is that a challenge?" Duo asked him. He squeezed Wufei's hand, nerves twisting up at the whole idea of the party. What if they saw Meiran? What if they didn't? Duo wondered if he could talk Wufei into missing the party altogether. "I like wrinkling this suit." It was the same suit Wufei wore to the Winter Ball. Duo remembered the thrill of undressing him, the way the suit had lain on the floor, rumpled, while Duo and Wufei learned each others' bodies.

Wufei allowed himself to be pulled down to meet Duo's lips, and Duo could feel in his mouth the moment Wufei gave in to his ministrations, gave himself back over. Duo raised a hand to Wufei's hair, feeling the soft, clean strands slide between his fingers, and pulled Wufei in more closely. He felt needy for Wufei's touch, needy for his attention. He needed to see Wufei's eyes glazed by lust, his lips kiss-swollen, his hair mussed. He laid back on the bed, pulling Wufei in on top of him, and slid his hand between them to unbutton Wufei's jacket, his dress shirt, feel the smooth, clean skin of his stomach. Duo wanted, he needed with a sudden burst of hunger.

"You need a shave," Wufei groaned into the angle of his jaw. Duo turned his head, caught the words with his mouth, caught Wufei's lip with his teeth and worried it slightly. "Oh god, Duo, we don't have time for this."

"No one arrives on time for a party," Duo responded between kisses, and went straight back for Wufei's ear. "We're being fashionable."

Wufei groaned, deep in his chest, and Duo felt a hand slide up his thigh and rest on his hip. He bent his knee up, cradling Wufei between his thighs and encouraging further attention to his ass. Duo bit down lightly on Wufei's neck, behind his ear, and began working at Wufei's belt, pulling at it until it opened. His experience with undressing other men was limited, but Wufei was hard muscle, smooth sinew, compact, and Duo felt a rush of emotion overcome him. This thing between them was still so new, the lines that connected them brittle as spun glass. Choose me, he thought hard, and nearly said it, nearly bit it into the skin of Wufei's shoulder. Choose me. Choose me. Choose me.

He loved Wufei - he loved the musky, spicy smell of him, the sound he made as Duo finally got his pants open, pushed a hand into his underwear, and grasped him. The taste of his skin, the feel of his hand squeezing Duo's ass. Duo rubbed himself against Wufei's thigh, feeling his dick rub against the thin barrier of his clothes.

"You're such a bad influence," Wufei gasped and opened Duo's shirt a little more, moving his neck from Duo's lips to bite at Duo's pectoral.

Duo pulled him closer and panted, rocking into his thigh harder.

Afterward they lay next to each other on the bed, hands intertwined as they struggled to catch their breath.

"I hope you have another pair of pants," Wufei said finally.

"Completely worth it," Duo said, feeling spent and lazy, possessive and content. _Choose me, til death do you part._

* * *

Duo had another, less formal pair of pants. Wufei watched with dismay as Duo brushed half-heartedly at the wrinkles in his jacket.

"I look unkempt," he moaned.

"Rumpled," Duo corrected with a grin. "Handsomely rumpled. And perhaps a little well-used."

* * *

It turned out Relena's idea of an intimate Christmas translated roughly to "probably fewer people than will attend our wedding." Duo, having lost Wufei somewhere around the cheese and wine bar in the first floor dining hall, found himself locked into conversation with a middle-aged woman whose hair was a shade of orange not known in nature and whose lipstick was caked around her lips as heavily as the thick powder around her eyes. Duo wondered if it was some sort of failed attempt to hide her age--and why? Despite her inability to dress her face non-garishly, Duo felt more comfortable trapped in conversation with her than seeking out any of his comrades from the old days.

"They've made the most amazing advances in peace nowadays," she said to Duo, clearly not minding that she was shouldering the majority of the conversation load. "I suppose that's why they call them the Peacecrafts. Did you see that speech dear Milliardo made the other day? He gives such lovely speeches - not as nice as little Relena, but she was always the master debater in the family. She was winning arguments with her father when she was six."

"She's a good talker," Duo agreed, and swirled the beer in his glass to feel the reassuring weight of it. He vaguely wondered where Wufei was, but not enough to brave the more occupied rooms to search for him. In war, it's every man for himself.

"She's always been so grown up," the woman said, and Duo wondered if he should know her - he wanted to call her Maude, but he wasn't convinced it was actually her name. "It's for the best that she decided to get married so quickly. It gives the public something to be excited about. It's been a long time since we had a real figurehead - a real hero, a champion of peace. The world needs someone to look up to. It's a lot of pressure to put on one young person's shoulders... but this war hasn't been kind to our young people."

"No," Duo murmured, and watched the beer swirl in his glass. "No, it hasn't."

The woman patted him on the shoulder. "One day we'll stop using children to fight our battles. Perhaps your generation can learn from the mistakes of ours."

Duo exhaled in a dark chuckle. "We'll just make new ones, I expect."

Maude spotted a gentleman in an extremely starched shirt across the room and waved her fingertips at him. "Thank you for the conversation, young man. I'm afraid duty calls." She gave him a sideways look. "Escape while you can."

With a wry smile of thanks, Duo slipped down the hall and into a darkened room. He eased the door shut behind him, letting the latch click quietly closed as he sighed in relief. The walls were high with bookshelves, fancy rolling ladders decorated with ropes of fir boughs tied with bright red ribbons. Duo inhaled and exhaled slowly, letting the smell of old books and pine fill his head and soothe his spirit. A fireplace crackled low against one wall, near a giant desk, while soft carpet and overstuffed furniture filled the middle of the room. Duo wondered if he could find this place again; with the comfortable couch and the coffee table, it would be the perfect place to study to prepare for when classes resumed.

With another deep breath, he made his way toward the glass doors to the balcony. Relena stood in front of them, sipping tea and watching the snow fall.

"I feel," she said softly, almost absently. "I feel as if I've lived three lifetimes already."

"I don't know how you do it," Duo replied. "How do you not just kill everyone?"

He could see the edges of her lips curl up in the light cast by the fireplace. "Practice, I suppose." She took another sip of her tea and stared out at the swirling snowflakes. After a long minute, she spoke again. "How did it feel? To leave this place, I mean. This life."

Duo traced his finger on the rim of his glass as he watched the snow build up on the railing outside. "Necessary, I guess. But in the end, it didn't matter. I left Earth, I did things different. But everything still sucked."

"Everything?" Relena asked.

"Are you getting cold feet?" Duo asked, drawing his attention from the snow to find her looking at him. "You don't have to get married, Lena. You can quit your job, become a florist. Or a painter."

"I guess I feel as if I'm ending my life again. Beginning a new one with this marriage. So I'm looking at my life, reviewing my regrets." Relena studied his face for a long moment, then reached up and smoothed his hair back from his forehead. When she finally spoke, Duo tensed. "For a long time, I wished it were you. I wish I could've loved you the way you deserved to be loved. You don't deserve what you've been given in this life. I'm sorry I left you in the OZ prison." She exhaled shakily. "I never said that, did I? I've been meaning to say that for four years now. I'm sorry I left you to die."

Duo shrugged and looked away. He didn't think about the prison, the stale smell of urine and decaying flesh, the frigid nights or the echoes of other, broken, prisoners. He didn't tell her how long he wanted to die, how long he wished he had died during the war, or before the end of the war. Duo didn't tell her how he has felt like a living casualty of war for years now. He didn't tell her that when she had a chance to ransom a prisoner, he had wished just as hard for his own release as he had for Heero's. Of all the personal calamities he'd suffered, being second to Heero has played a very minor role in contributing to his physical and psychological damage. "I've always known you would pick Heero's life over mine... just like Heero will always pick you, and Quatre will always pick family, and Trowa will always pick the girl with the sad eyes, and Meiran will always pick the innocent. Besides," he joked, "it was kind of nice to have an extended vacation."

"I've seen the way Wufei looks at you," Relena said, a smile ghosting over her lips.

"Yeah," Duo said, and finished his beer. "But I'm not the one he'll pick in the end."

When he looked back up at her, he could see her eyes were sad. "I hope you know you didn't have to leave. You don't have to leave. And if you do leave, you can always come back to me. To all of us."

He sighed. "You remember how I used to say, 'I run, I hide, but I never lie'? Somewhere along the way I started lying to myself about who I am, what I am. What I'm good for." He shrugged. "You know I love you, Lena, but being here, with all of you? I can just feel myself believing those lies again."

"Oh, Duo." Relena squeezed his shoulder. "Listen to me carefully: you are a good man, very intelligent, with a good heart. You have a very nice young man who is head over heels with you - no," she interrupted with a shake of her finger, "let me finish - he has a great head on his shoulders, this nice young man of yours, very skilled at sifting through all sorts of complex issues that my advisers have difficulty with, and if he is head over heels with you then you need to sit down and shut up for a while. He and I had a very interesting, very long conversation the other day, and I am an excellent judge of character. It's one of my strengths."

Duo chuckled bitterly. "Well, if our relationship survives this trip, then we'll see."

He could see the face she made reflected in the glass. "I'm just hoping my marriage survives past my wedding. Am I crazy to marry Heero? He wouldn't know a functional relationship if it stripped naked and danced in front of him."

"One thing I'll say for Heero," Duo said, glad for the change in conversation topic. "For him, there's never been anyone but you."

"I suppose," Relena agreed, resigned. "I bet he's watching me on the security feed right now."

They both looked up at the camera hidden in the corner of the room. Duo saluted with two fingers.

Duo inclined his head the smallest amount; Relena, guarded by Heero at his most paranoid and the other Gundam pilots as necessary, was used to taking silent signals, and followed his lead out of the room. They slipped down the hall, Relena giggling breathlessly about playing hooky at her own party. Duo laid out a trail based on the cameras he could see and the ones he expected to find, and though he didn't expect to find them all, he thought he made a pretty good showing.

"Why are you avoiding everyone?" Relena asked as they paused in a stairwell.

He peeked around a corner. "I'm not avoiding everyone. I talked to Maude earlier."

Relena's brow furrowed and she pursed her lips. "Maude...?"

Duo hurriedly broke in on her pondering. "And I ate cheese in the main room."

She shook her head. "I meant Quatre, Trowa, and Meiran."

Duo raised an eyebrow. "Really? Quatre?"

She smiled ruefully. She might not understand their feud, but she couldn't help but notice its existence. "Okay, just Trowa and Meiran, then. You know they want to see you."

Duo shrugged, uneasy. "I'll probably see them here tonight."

Relena tucked part of her dress behind her as they slid into a darkened hallway. "Is it because of Wufei?"

"What?" Duo glanced over at her.

"Because I'm sure they won't care. He seems like a really nice guy." She paused as someone passed. "He's not at all the kind of person I thought you'd get serious about."

"Thanks," he said with a sigh.

She smacked him on the arm. "I just mean--I always thought you'd end up with someone more... physically demonstrative."

Duo's mind strayed to all the times Wufei touched him on the arm, held him, stroked his hair, kissed him. Sometimes he felt like the world stormed around him, and Wufei offered the only lee. "He's plenty demonstrative," he said, his tone holding a note of finality. "When it counts." When you knew how to read Wufei, he was like an open book; Duo was learning daily how to interpret Wufei's subtle nuances.

"If you say so," she said gently. "I think I need to rejoin my party. Shall we?" She held out her hand to him.

He glanced through the doorway into the grand hallway, where people mingled and chatted with drinks in their hands. He took a deep breath when he spotted Quatre; the blond was chatting amicably enough in Arabic with an older gentleman and a woman Duo assumed was the man's wife. Even from here, though, Duo could see the ice in his smile and the set of his stance. He shook his head at Relena.

She smiled, sad and a little frustrated, and patted him on the shoulder. "Whatever happened between you two, I hope you make up some day." Relena smoothed her skirt and entered the room.

Duo wondered how it escaped everyone that Quatre was still using the ZERO System. He was getting better at hiding it, Duo admitted--but the coldness of his eyes, the tilt of his head, the teeth of his smile belied the lack of true emotion every time. Duo supposed everyone found peace in different ways; if no one else had a problem with Q turning off his emotions, well, Duo already had his ticket off the planet and far away from the whole mess. Besides, Duo was hardly a model of healthy coping skills, and hadn't Father Maxwell told him, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?"

Duo figured if he was lucky, he would get through Christmas without any sort of major confrontation with anyone.

Duo slipped back into the stairwell and ascended the plush stairs as Relena encouraged people to move down the hall to the conservatory for caroling. Upstairs he found himself in a long hallway lined with white busts of various political figures, all staring directly at him. His skin itched, but he forced himself to maintain a leisurely pace. It was quieter up here, and he figured maybe he could blow another few hours of the party in the library. He faltered in the doorway: the library had a small crowd in it, milling about near the bar and consuming various alcoholic beverages. As he scanned over the room, his gaze caught on Meiran, and any schemes for hiding he might have had faded behind the sound of his blood rushing through his ears. Garbed in a black dress, black heels, and pearl choker, she was a stunning picture of elegance. Perhaps most disturbing, though, was that she gaped openly at Wufei, who was awkwardly staring back at her. Next to her, Wufei's neat, rumpled suit looked cheap. Duo's heart froze painfully in his chest, and he clenched his fists.

"Chang Wufei?" he heard her say.

"Meiran," Wufei replied stiffly.

Her eyes were open wide, and she mouthed something so quietly that Duo decided it was probably a curse in Chinese. She looked pretty, he thought absently: hair twisted up, wearing a black sheath dress and rather daring heels for a woman who claimed only a few years back she would wear a boy's uniform with trousers or they could all go to hell. ("I'll wear the skirt," Quatre had volunteered after an uncomfortable silence. Duo couldn't believe that, after all these years, he was the gay one.)

"It's really me," Wufei said gently, and took a step closer. Duo thought he looked terrified, and somewhat nauseated. "I'm here."

"You're dead," she said, and people were staring. Duo, who couldn't tear his own eyes away, felt his heart fall to his stomach, leaden. "You're dead, husband."

"No," Wufei said quietly, "I'm not." He glanced around at the crowd of people surrounding them. "We have some things to talk about, I think? Shall we - "

"No," Meiran cut him off, "No, you're dead. You died and I fought for you. I avenged your death."

"Meiran," Wufei tried again.

Duo knew what was coming next by the look on Meiran's face. She swept in, all tightly contained energy, all coiled muscles, and pulled Wufei into a hug. Duo wondered if he would've been more comfortable with her punching Wufei. Duo squinted at Wufei, trying to judge Wufei's reaction; as usual, Wufei played his cards close to his chest.

"You stupid scholar! I thought you were dead." Although she spoke quietly, Duo heard the words as clearly as if he were standing right there. "I thought I failed you." Duo thought he saw a tear on her cheek.

Duo remembered Wufei's tightly controlled anguish, his revelation: She left me there to die, but I never died. He hated himself for hoping Wufei still remembered that, too, but he hated even more the idea that maybe Wufei would feel free to love her again the way he had once and so obviously still did.

"I lived," Wufei said. "I just. I thought you should know."

She slapped him across the face, and Duo blinked in surprise. Wufei looked stunned, but made no move to defend himself. If anything, the light in his eyes hollowed, and his expression drew pinched.

"You should have told me," she hissed. "You just let me think for years that you were dead? What kind of man are you? What kind of husband?"

"Meiran - " Wufei said, broken, and Duo watched the play of emotions across his face.

"Were you so desperate to get out of our marriage?" She raised her hand again, and Duo didn't think: he stepped out of the doorway, across the room, and caught her wrist before she could finish the swing.

"Maxwell," Meiran protested, and Duo couldn't tell if she was confused at his sudden appearance or angry at his interruption. His attention was on Wufei, on the rising red mark on his cheek and the growing sadness in his eyes.

"He's here now," Duo told her, still gripping her wrist. "He came because of you. He came to see you. Don't be such a dick about it." He looked at Wufei. "You okay, Wu?"

Wufei shook his head briefly. "You can stop panicking, woman. I am alive, and I am well."

Meiran glared, but Duo thought it looked more like panic than anger. "You stupid scholar, you're supposed to be dead."

"Woman, mind your tongue," Wufei said tightly, but Duo thought his expression looked more like panic than anger, too.

"I can't take you back," she said stiffly, and wrestled her wrist from Duo. "I have - a new life now. You've been gone for years," she broke off and looked over her shoulder at Duo, "and Maxwell, this is a private conversation."

"Then don't have it in the middle of a crowded room," he told her, his voice deceptively mild. She stiffened at his tone, and he flashed a toothy grin. "And it's nice to see you, too." Quatre wasn't the only one who could make a smile a threat.

"I didn't come here to ask you to leave with me," Wufei said. "I came because you're Duo's friend, and he needed to see you. I know you two shared experiences I could never share." He looked at Duo, and Duo wondered if Wufei was purposefully projecting a "you're an idiot" tone. "I came so you would go to the wedding." He addressed the last part to Duo.

"What are you..." Meiran trailed off as she glanced between Wufei and Duo, apparently realizing Wufei wasn't addressing her. "You two know each other?"

Duo ignored her. "It's just a wedding, Wu."

Wufei smiled gently at him. "It's that part of yourself that you're always fighting."

Meiran shoved Duo's shoulder. "Maxwell, did you know my husband was alive this entire time?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Duo said, tearing his eyes from Wufei's face to look at her. "Are you really wearing a dress?"

Her cheeks reddened, and Duo saw Wufei fight a smile down from the corner of his eye. Wufei brushed his fingers against Duo's arm, and Duo was reminded suddenly that he was wearing Wufei's sweater, and Wufei's scent surrounded him. "Meiran, we should talk privately," Wufei said, and gestured toward the door.

Meiran and Wufei walked calmly through the buzzing crowd, and Duo trusted Meiran to ensure that no one was around to hear their conversation. As he watched them go, he became aware of a presence settling in next to him. It took him a moment to recognize the person standing there.

"Trowa?" he asked, surprised.

Trowa nodded. With his hair neatly trimmed, it was possible to see his entire face. "Maxwell." Duo thought he looked good--possibly taller than when Duo last saw him, and refined in his brushed black suit. "Long time."

They stood in silence for a moment, not looking at each other. Duo tried to figure out if it was awkward. "You look good," he offered.

"You brought Chang's husband to Heero and Relena's party," Trowa said.

Duo nodded, eyes still on the hallway they'd adjourned to. "Yep."

Trowa put his hands in his pant pockets. "Chang and I are engaged."

Duo glanced back at Trowa. "Yeah?"

"We're announcing it tonight," Trowa said.

"Congratulations." Duo scratched his head. "I'm dating Wufei."

He could feel Trowa's eyes on him. "You're dating Chang's husband."

Duo nodded again, eyes back on the hallway. "And you're dating Wufei's wife."

Trowa inclined his head in acknowledgment of the point. "So you're gay."

"Yep."

Trowa nodded. "Okay."

They stood there for another minute, and Duo decided it was definitely an awkward silence. "Want to get something to drink?"

"Okay," Trowa agreed, and they headed for the bar together.

Duo had never been as comfortable with silences as Trowa; during the war, he had tended to fill them with loud and obnoxious topics to try to goad a response out of his fellow pilots. Quatre had engaged fairly easily, and Meiran reacted explosively in a fairly predictable, but no less entertaining, pattern. Even Heero could usually be provoked into a response, but Trowa's silence had always felt a little more untouchable. Duo nursed his drink and wondered what Wufei and Meiran were discussing.

"Maxwell?" came a voice from the door, and Duo looked over reluctantly, not sure he was ready for any more conversation. "Oh my god," Sally said from the doorway, and Duo immediately stepped back before realizing that there was no other exit. He was trapped in this room.

"Maxwell," Une greeted him, steering Sally out of the doorway and closer to them. "Nice to see you again."

It seemed genuine enough, but then, who could tell with Une? Duo chose to nod in response and take another swallow of his drink.

"I knew you would be here," Sally gushed. "I knew this is what Chang was talking about!"

"Barton, you cut your hair," Une said, and Sally gasped.

"Barton! Your hair!" she exclaimed loudly.

Une looked pained. "She had a couple highballs downstairs," she said by way of explanation. Sally rolled her eyes, but Une just ignored her. "There was singing and Sally has an awful voice so we escaped up here."

"I do not have an awful voice," Sally protested.

"I will pay you to never sing again," Une told her. "So, Maxwell, what have you been up to? Please tell me you live a boring and hum-drum life. I have a bet I need to win."

Duo and Trowa exchanged a look, and Duo knew there was no way for him to make a graceful exit, or even a frantic one, because Trowa would kill him if he left him alone with these two women. Besides which, he had the feeling that Wufei would not be forgiving if he disappeared before the Changs were done with their marital bliss discussion. Duo smiled at Sally and Une, but resuming the mask was beginning to get more and more difficult. "School, mostly," he told Une. "Lots and lots of school."

Sally grinned broadly. "Are you seeing anyone?" she asked.

"Um. Yes," he said, and wondered why Sally was grinning so hard.

"Is it serious?" Sally asked, almost giddy, and Duo wondered exactly how many highballs she'd had. Her hand fluttered to Duo's arm; he felt his spine stiffen at the intrusion, and wondered if this situation really was uncomfortable or if Wufei's sense of personal space was rubbing off on him. He glanced at Une out of the corner of his eye; she had her face covered with one hand.

"Pretty serious," he said, possibly more firmly than the situation warranted, and shrugged off her hand. He didn't remember her being quite so excitable during the war, but hell, maybe that was because he spent the war intentionally trying to put people off.

"Ha!" Sally declared. "I knew it!" She surveyed the room. "Where is Chang, anyway?"

Trowa shrugged. "She'll be back soon."

"So," Duo said to Une, desperately trying to get Sally's attention off of him, "tell me about the Preventers." Une shot him a look of thanks, and Sally seemed to settle a little.

By the time the Changs returned, Une had provided exhaustive detail on the politics surrounding the formation and maintenance of the Preventers. Wufei would've loved it, Duo knew, while he managed to just nod in the appropriate places while he watched the rest of the room.

Duo worked himself into a near anxious mania while Une talked and Trowa nursed his first drink into a third. Duo knew he was being paranoid, but he was sure the few other guests left in the room were talking about him. He smirked at everyone who even looked in his general direction until the bartender told him to stop scaring away other guests. "I appreciate the break," she said quietly while Une and Sally debated the minutiae of their receptionist's salary. The bartender's smile was patient but firm. "However, it's Christmas. Most people get through the holidays with a few extra vodka tonics." Duo watched Trowa clutch his glass like a shield and did not bother to respond.

Because he continued to survey the exit like he was on assignment, he saw the moment the Changs arrived back to the party. Meiran walked quickly, with intent, while Wufei followed looking moderately uncomfortable. Duo admired the long black gloves that covered her arms just until she drew close enough to reach out for his ear. Since he'd been half expecting someone to start a fight with him since he boarded the jet back on L-4 and Meiran had sloppy technique when she was pissed off, he was more than prepared to dodge and twist her arm over, pinning her wrist in preparation for breaking it. Sally, who'd been mid-ecstatic greeting at the sight of Meiran, broke off abruptly, and Une reached for a firearm she wasn't currently carrying. Trowa looked startled at the altercation, but Duo thought maybe that was just because he wasn't used to seeing both of Trowa's eyes.

"Maxwell!" she snapped. She broke his hold easily enough, but didn't reach for him again.

"What the hell?" he demanded, mostly to Trowa and Wufei. The two men raised their hands defensively, not getting involved; Trowa was the only one who met his eyes, and Duo swallowed roughly.

"We need to talk," Meiran said, and jerked her head meaningfully at the door. "Une, Po. I'll be back in a minute." She glared at Barton, and Duo felt a cold knife of fear rise in his belly again. He glanced at Wufei, who continued to avoid his eyes, and took a deep, calming breath. You will handle this like a mature adult, he told himself, and immediately decided he was keeping Wufei's sweater no matter the outcome of tonight.

"Fine," Duo said, as if he had a choice, and cracked his neck. Meiran single-mindedly made her way for the door; Duo followed, grudgingly impressed at her ability to stomp in those very high heels.

They made their way past the creepy busts and past the stairwell. Duo heard the distant singing of "Deck the Halls" from the group downstairs and the muffled clicking of Meiran's shoes, the distant howling of a gust of wind. The borrowed sweater rode up above his wrists, and he tugged it down, self-conscious, until they reached a janitorial closet. Meiran waved him in first, then shut the door behind her. The click of the door latch felt impossibly loud.

"You knew," she said into the sudden quiet, and Duo eyed the contents of the closet for anything that could be used as a weapon.

"So what?" he said, skin crawling. She stood between him and the door.

"Duo," she said, and her voice grated in her throat. "You let me believe he was dead! You let me come here unprepared! Did I not deserve the basic courtesy of a telephone call? No, instead you allowed me to find out publicly, as if we were strangers."

"You called him your stupid scholar," he said, and with those words something broke in him. "You called him your stupid scholar, and he isn't. He isn't stupid and he isn't yours."

Meiran bristled. "I have never been anything but honest with you. I have confided in you, and as always you have proven yourself a most untrustworthy ally."

"You know what," Duo said, and with a snap he knew he wasn't about to let Wufei go without a fight. "I don't care about your prior claim or your honor. The war is fucking over, and I have watched your back and you don't even know how I defended you. The war is fucking over, and I am done fighting with you, for you, against you - I'm done with you, and you can't have Wufei."

Meiran rolled her eyes. "Maxwell - "

"No," he said, one hand balling to a fist. "I love him. He's smart and he's gorgeous and I think maybe one day he'll love me. I don't care what kind of prior claim you think you have, because the boy you talked about all the time is gone. The man that's left, Wufei, doesn't deserve to be trapped in a loveless marriage with you, and fuck your honor. You'll leave him alone, or I swear to God--"

"Duo," Meiran said softly, and it was the sound of his first name that brought him to a halt. He realized he was breathing hard, both hands fisted at his sides, and he pushed down at the icy wedge in his gut. "I'm not trying to take him from you."

It took him a minute to process her words. "What?" he said, dumbly.

"Duo, I'm engaged." She held up her gloved hand so he could see the diamond engagement ring nestled over the black glove. "Don't you think you could've let me know sooner that he was alive? We've wasted time we could've used to start the divorce proceedings."

Duo blinked, unsure what to do with his lingering nervous energy. "Divorce proceedings?"

Meiran eyed him as if he were a particularly dull pet. "I can hardly marry Barton if I'm already married."

"You should probably start calling him Trowa," Duo said, and wondered why he couldn't just shut the hell up and stop picking fights with her.

Meiran rolled her eyes again. "Maxwell, I shall take your advice under consideration." She paused, visibly, awkwardly searching for words. "I know my husband--" she cleared her throat, "Wufei. I know Wufei can be--inconsiderate but--if you--"

He frowned as what she was saying finally sunk past his nervous adrenaline rush. "Are you telling me if I hurt him you'll kill me?"

She flushed, looking uncomfortable, and hunched her shoulders a little. "No, you idiot. I'm telling you--I married him, I know what he's like. He's rude, and inconsiderate. And if he hurts you--I cannot believe I'm saying this."

Duo felt embarrassment staining his own cheeks red. "I can fight my own battles." He scratched his head and looked away. "Congratulations on your engagement."

Meiran cleared her throat. "Wufei and I married because it was the will of our families. He never loved me. It is obvious he feels differently toward you now than he did toward me when we were young."

Duo thought he detected more than a hint of resentment in her voice as he stared at a shelf of cleaning supplies. "Thanks," was all he could think to respond.

Meiran huffed. "Next time you know something that will change my life or possibly be a great inconvenience to me, please tell me. You owe me that little."

I owe you nothing, Duo thought, but the words rang hollow in his head. "I think we're done here," he said stiffly, and she reluctantly opened the door and let him out. Fresher air filled his lungs, and he felt a certain giddy relief that he'd dodged some sort of bullet. The sounds of "Jingle Bells" rang up from below as they stalked down the hallway, and Duo walked at little more quickly as the sound of laughter trickled through. The anxious buzz still hummed in the back of his skull and itched his limbs, and despite the rush of hopeful relief that left him almost sick he still couldn't quite believe that this long-dreaded moment was so quickly, so easily over.

When they got back to the library, Wufei was listening, enraptured, as Une delved into the unexpected legal ramifications of a certain Preventers decision and Sally swirled a pink drink in a martini glass. Sally's eyes lit up at the sight of them, and she waggled her fingers.

"Hey, lovebirds," she said with a grin, and Duo brushed past her to slip his arms around Wufei. Still brimming with leftover adrenalin and high with unexpected victory, he drew Wufei in until they were flush together, leaned down, and pulled a deep kiss from his lips. Wufei, tense at first, eventually relaxed his grip on Duo's forearms and his mouth opened under Duo's. No clash of teeth, just lips and a little tongue and even though Duo was staking a claim, he felt Wufei's fingers burned into his arms, felt a little possessed himself. Duo tasted the faint taste of whiskey on Wufei's tongue, bits of chocolate, and a sweet taste that was only, could only be Wufei. Duo felt his breath catch at the feel of Wufei's skin under his palm, and broke off the kiss abruptly. Wufei blinked up at him, eyes glazed, lips reddened, hair a little mussed, and Duo loved him fiercely.

"I was not expecting that," Sally said, and Duo glanced back at her. She was studying him, the twist of her mouth confused. "Aren't you engaged to Chang?"

"What?" Duo said, still feeling Wufei's kiss.

"You idiots," Meiran said, and threaded her fingers through Trowa's. "I'm engaged to Barton."

Wufei gently disentangled himself from Duo, cheeks flushed with some combination of arousal and embarrassment, and Duo felt relief that, somehow, he'd won this battle. He'd staked his claim, he'd shown himself in front of people he'd worked with, who knew him for the terrifying criminal he still felt like he was, and he'd done it without punching anyone. He thought maybe that deserved a prize.

"I told you she wasn't dating Maxwell," Une said smugly. "You owe me fifty credits."

"Vodka tonic?" the bartender inquired.

"Hell," Duo said lowly. Meiran took the vodka tonic from the bartender and drank half immediately.

"Did Une pay you to kiss this guy?" Sally demanded. "Because that would be cheating."

Either the look Duo gave Wufei betrayed his anxiety, or Wufei was gaining a second sense when it came to Duo's need to be physically restrained, because Wufei hovered closely and laid a hand on Duo's shoulder. Duo wondered if Wufei was hiding behind him.

* * *

It was nearly an hour before they finally extracted themselves from Trowa, Une, Meiran, and Sally (who, upon learning that Meiran really was engaged, declared herself "woefully bereft" of male company and flirted shamelessly with the barkeeper for more drinks. The barkeeper, grinning, reminded them that it was an open bar, but Duo saw her discretely watering down Sally's drinks). Duo breathed a sigh of relief as they wandered down to the conservatory, where a rousing rendition of "Have Yourself A Merry Fucking Christmas" was just wrapping up in favor of some more traditional Christmas songs. Duo closed his eyes through "Stille Nacht," remembering the way Maxwell's Church had rung with recordings of "Ave Maria," "O Magnum Mysterium," and Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus." Though no one here could be termed "professional" by any means, the live music filled up the room. "The Wexford Carol" spread into the corners, and "By Starlight Cometh," and "Here Comes Santa Claus," and "Greensleeves," and "Once in Royal David's City," and "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas," and all the other songs Duo had only heard on the radio. He leaned against the wall with Wufei, hearing the music seep through his pores like a cleansing shower, feeling Wufei pressed into his side like he hadn't just dodged a bullet with Meiran.

"Aside from the last hour and half," Wufei quietly, "which were hellish, I've quite liked this party."

Duo chuckled. "Met some people, did you?"

Wufei hmmed happily. "Senators, government officials, military generals, and I even met some royalty. You know, it's so homogeneous out in the colonies, sometimes I forget how diverse people really are."

"There's a lot of diversity out there," Duo protested mildly.

"Between the different colonies, sure," Wufei said. "But just look at L-4, for instance. It's a group of people who grow test-tube babies so they can breed out undesirable traits--but since it's all the same people who decide what is desirable, you end up with a group of people who are all pretty much the same, who snuff out diversity where they see it."

Duo played with the joints in Wufei's hand, moving his fingers, learning the feel of the hand. "You've spent Christmas getting stirred up."

"Just a series of homogeneous microcosms," Wufei muttered, not unhappily. It sounded to Duo as if he were repeating something he'd heard someone else say. "You didn't tell me there would be intellectual debate at the party." He made it sound like a pleasant surprise, which it probably was to him.

"I guess I had other things on my mind," he said in reply.

A man shushed the crowd, thumbing over toward a couch where a woman was hunched over a guitar. Apparently the group had discussed this previously, because they settled and the soloist began a quiet version of "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day." Wufei turned to watch, but Duo turned his gaze toward Wufei and realized that everyone now knew about his boyfriend: Relena and Heero, Meiran, Zechs, Trowa, and even Quatre, and the world hadn't ended. It was as if one weight had lifted and another settled, and he played with the button on the cuff of Wufei's shirt and tried to figure out why he felt so naked. He wasn't ashamed of Wufei, he decided finally, but it was possible that he was uncomfortable with love. He mentally prodded at "love" and wondered suddenly if Q still ran in horror or if he accessed the ZERO System for love now, too.

Fuck Quatre, he decided. It was a season for new beginnings. The song came to an end, and the pianist started in on a strangely militant version of "Good King Wenceslas."

One song melted into another and the hour drew late. They both tried and rejected the eggnog, and as the singers slowly dispersed, Wufei nudged him in the arm.

"Hey," he said. "I have some shoes to show you."

Duo stared at him for a moment, mellow from the music and the release of anxiety, until he finally processed what Wufei said. "You bastard," he said fondly.

Wufei smirked in response, and the two of them meandered through the holiday crowds toward the residential wing of the manor. Wufei pulled Duo through the door into his room and let it swing shut.

They kissed softly for several minutes, Wufei's fingers tracing patterns on Duo's face, his neck, in his hair; Duo stroked downward lines on Wufei's sides, relishing in the feel of Wufei's body. The sound of their lips was quiet, even in the relative silence of the room, and Wufei's breathy groans stirred Duo toward arousal slowly. Duo let his teeth skim along the strong line of Wufei's jaw, a small prickle of stubble Wufei missed during his earlier shave, and Wufei inhaled sharply and pressed Duo into the wall.

The following kiss had a bite to it that left Duo hard and aching, arching away from the wall and reaching out to reel Wufei in closer even as Wufei pushed him back into the wall and pulled away.

"I think I should make some things clear," Wufei said as Duo groaned in protest. "I would have been happy with Meiran never knowing I was alive. I would've been happy if she'd thought me dead forever. Do you honestly think I didn't know where she was this whole time?" Wufei's hands tightened on Duo's arms. "I didn't come here to see her again. I came for you. I chose you." Duo felt his breath catch in his throat at Wufei's honest confession. "Because you've been through things that you still have nightmares about. You pretend you don't, but I'm not an idiot." Wufei leaned in closer, and Duo felt Wufei's mouth ghost over his in a teasing almost-kiss. "I came to Earth because I didn't want you to be alone. I don't think you think very clearly when I leave you alone."

"I'm not thinking very clearly with you here," Duo replied breathlessly. Wufei rewarded him with a bite to his throat, just over his carotid artery, and Duo ached deep in his chest.

"I didn't realize at first," Wufei continued, nosing behind Duo's ear. "You've been acting like a maniac since we decided to come to the wedding. I thought maybe you didn't like Relena Darlian-Peacecraft very much and you just came to be polite, but now I think maybe she's the only one you do like." Wufei licked Duo's neck, and Duo managed an unintelligible response. "I've got your number, Duo Maxwell. You can't hide from me."

"I run, I hide," Duo managed, more turned on than he ever remembered being. "I never lie."

Wufei pulled his face away from Duo's neck and smiled. "Of course you don't." Duo wanted to argue Wufei's tone, which clearly indicated he disagreed with Duo's assertion, but Wufei leaned in for a kiss and Duo decided he didn't really want to argue it that much.

"Do you know how much it turns me on when you kiss me?" Wufei asked. "When you touch me I feel like I can fly."

"I think you stole my words," Duo admitted.

Wufei peeled up Duo's sweater, and Duo thought desperately that Christmas had never been better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"Through the years We all will be together,  
>  If the Fates allow.  
> Hang a shining star upon the highest bough,  
> And have yourself a merry little Christmas now."_
> 
> \- Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, by Ralph Blane and Hugh Martin


	11. Epilogue:  This Valley of Dying Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the wedding.

Three days after returning to Tienen-U, Duo was sitting in his room with a book on robotics, listening to the radio, when the door to his room flew open. Jordan's arms were full of textbooks and boxes. Duo twitched his toes, comfortable and warm and confident in Jordan's ability to make multiple trips. Jordan used his foot to wrangle his luggage into the room. Duo was reluctantly impressed.

Jordan laid his stack on the floor next to his chair and removed his glasses, squinting at something on them.

"Happy New Year," he said to his glasses, then retrieved something from his bag and tossed it to Duo. Duo caught the box easily, and pried the lid open to sniff. "My great-grandma made you Chanukah cookies."

"Ooh," Duo murmured, and held one up. "Shaped like an umbrella?" he guessed, and tried one. It was still buttery and sweet, and Duo chewed happily. "Happy New Year."

"That's a dreidel," Jordan corrected. "Give her a break, she's ninety-seven."

Duo nodded. "My compliments to the chef."

Jordan slid his glasses back on, scratched his scruffy 5 o'clock shadow, and surveyed their room. "This place is smaller than I remembered. Nice wedding?"

Duo nodded. "Completely successful. No one died and security only had to tackle two people."

Jordan made grabbing motions with his hands. "Souvenirs?"

Duo obediently reached under his bed and tossed the requested bag to Jordan. He opened it, cackling gleefully over the snow globe of Peacecraft Manor. He turned the globe to the side, watching the white dots swirl through the water. "Is that real snow in there?"

Duo gave him an unimpressed look. "Do you even know what snow is?"

Jordan shrugged. "It's white and fluffy? What else should I know?"

Duo rolled his eyes and tossed him a jar of peanut butter. There were some things colony-born would never understand until they'd been down to the planet. Jordan abandoned the globe to make covetous motions over the peanut butter. "Say what you will, but Earth peanut butter is the best."

Duo nodded and turned back to his book. "And their pizza."

* * *

Duo had a lunch date with a girl from his A&P course (because Wufei insisted that they join a study group that had other people in it. "What kind of kinky studying are you into?" Duo protested suspiciously; Wufei rolled his eyes and handed him a list of potential candidates to interview. Duo resolved to meet and approve the first three people regardless of scholarly achievement.) He returned from lunch with a healthy appreciation for Wufei's ability to find the lesbianest lesbian ever to be accepted into Tienen-U only to find Jordan hanging curtains in their room.

"Dude," he said, watching his roommate string up the hand-made red and gold valence.

"They were a gift from my mom," Jordan said, and stood back to look at his work. "Don't judge."

The curtains hung crooked at the top of the window. Duo and Jordan both tilted their heads and stared at it.

"Film festival tonight down at the Student Union," Jordan said, because apparently they weren't going to talk about the crooked curtains. He began to sort through a basket of rumpled laundry of dubious cleanliness. "You and Wufei want to come? I think it's the third Chung Li Dragon Warriors flick."

Duo ate another cookie thoughtfully. "Wufei has awful taste in movies, too. We'll be there."

Jordan flicked a towel at him and told him to shut up.

* * *

Duo pushed the door open, knocking gently as he did so. "Hey, doc?"

Dr. Cavell looked up from her desk, dark hair pulled up in a messy bun, glasses resting on her nose. She carefully capped the red pen in her hand and set it aside. "Mr. Maxwell. I don't have you in any of my classes this semester. Can I help you?" Though her words were congenial, her tone was on the edge of caustic.

He set his bag on the floor and sprawled in the chair across from her. Something about offices like these always triggered defiance deep in his lizard brain, he thought to himself. "How was your break?"

She raised an eyebrow pointedly. "You're here to make small-talk?"

"Fine, fine," he said, flapping his hand as if to wave her off. "Jeez, a guy tries to be nice and you take his head off."

"Mr. Maxwell," she said dryly, a smile playing on her lips, "having had you for one class, I feel qualified to make some sort of pithy remark about your ability to be 'nice.'"

"But you can't comment on my work ethic," Duo said. "I mean, I nailed that test to the wall. With, like, a nail gun."

"Mr. Maxwell," Dr. Cavell began with a sigh, "If you're here merely to gloat about your test-taking abilities--"

"I didn't cheat on your stupid test--I'm no dummy," he said hurriedly. "I'm smart, I'm dedicated, I work, like, really hard. I care about people when they aren't morons. I'm done doing harm to people--I didn't punch one person during the break, even when they really, really deserved it, and I'm dealing with my problems like a grown-up and I'm thinking maybe one day I won't wake up from nightmares five nights out of every seven, and I'm spending my valuable time with people who are a positive influence. I like reading. I like studying. I want to make things better. I want to make people better."

"Mr. Maxwell," Dr. Cavell began again, tone sharp and hard, and Duo got a sudden rush of Lady Une vibes that made his heart freeze in his nervous chest. His hand went to where he used to keep the holster on his leg, and he very carefully did not let his eyes dart toward the nearest exit. Cavell took a deep breath and visibly forced herself to relax. "Why are you here?"

He squared his shoulders and plunged through. "Be my advisor," he said, and belatedly added, "Please."

She frowned. "I'm not easy," she warned him. "I have high expectations of my students for grades, professional conduct, studying--"

"I know," he interrupted. "I know."

"When you're a doctor, you have to remember that you're working with sick people." Her voice gentled subtly, and he found some of his tension draining away. "People aren't just simple creatures--they're messy and complex, and sometimes you have to get your hands dirty. There are no good guys and bad guys here. This isn't a war."

"Doc," he leaned forward toward her desk. "I think you're wrong there. In war, there aren't good guys and bad guys--we're all just guys. And maybe you don't realize it, but the war ain't over just 'cause everyone stops fighting. It sticks with you, and you have to fight it a little more each day, beat it down and beat it out of you. I've spent my life just on this side of drowning. I've been through almost every hell imaginable. I know what it's like to be around messy and complex, and I'm not afraid of getting my hands dirty."

"You have to remember that whatever your neuroses, whatever your quirks, you're there as a healer," Cavell said. She raised a mug of coffee to her mouth as if to take a drink, sniffed it, and put it back down. "Healing is more than just diagnosis and treatment. It's about giving people the means to thrive. I expect my students to invest themselves in their patients, and to do the research. It's hard work."

"I know," Duo said. "I swear, I know."

She pursed her lips. "I meet with all my students monthly, and I have spies everywhere. If you fuck up this chance I'm giving you, I swear you'll never work anywhere in medicine ever again."

"Yes, ma'am." He grinned. "I promise you won't regret this."

* * *

"So?" Wufei asked. Duo punched the air, and Wufei grinned in response. "Congratulations!"

"I'm getting an internship lined up," he said as he threw himself at Wufei. Wufei caught him like he was nothing and spun him, right there in public in front of el-Amud Hall, and Duo clutched his shoulders in nervous response. "Slow down, cowboy!"

"Not that your news isn't great," Wufei said. "But I've been dying to tell you: Relena Darlien-Peacecraft-Yuy sent me an email asking for my advice on a new bill!"

"I think you have to start calling her Relena," Duo said. "You went to her wedding. You had Christmas with her in your pajamas. You're dating her husband's man of honor."

Wufei made a noise of disdain. "You were only a groomsman. Your job was to make sure he brushed his hair before the wedding."

Duo closed the gap between them, pressing his lips to Wufei's, and damn the public. "I promise I'll still love you when you're a greasy politician."

"I promise I'll still love you when you're a greasy politician's trophy bride," Wufei said with a grin.

"Wufei!" Duo said, affecting offense. "Are you only asking me to marry you because you've been swept away by wedding bliss? Do you think I could get away with white lace?"

"Why are you always trying to wear a dress for our special occasions?" Wufei asked thoughtfully as they began to make their way through the colony.

"I have the legs for it," Duo said, and swatted Wufei at his snort of disbelief. They didn't talk about Wufei's divorce proceedings, nor did they talk about his still-strained relationship with Meiran. Messy and complex indeed, Duo thought. It still amazed him to find good people in this world - people whose broken lives could mesh together and become some sort of new haven where the everyday battles could be fought with allies. He had fought so long alone, so hard; Duo squeezed Wufei's hand and wondered how long their two lives would be woven together. Wufei grinned widely at him, freely and toothily, and Duo felt his heart turn over and crack once more.

"What?" Wufei asked.

"Nothing," Duo said, and laced their fingers together more tightly. "So, Relena asked you to help her with a new bill. She never asks for opinions on political stuff. What the hell did you guys talk about over Christmas?"

Wufei's eyes lit up, and Duo resigned himself to another impassioned monologue on the genius that is Relena Darlien-Peacecraft-Yuy. "There's a treaty she's working on with a few colonies in the L-3 cluster..."

* * *

Weeks later, they lay together on the futon in Wufei's room. Wufei's roommate had some sort of crisis - something to do with his girlfriend finding some unidentified girl's panties somewhere around the room - so for once they had the space to themselves. ("How do you know they aren't Chang's?" Hans asked her while she stood in front of him, shaking the black lace in Hans' face. "Wufei is a nice guy!" she screamed back. "And how have you not yet noticed he's gay!" "Wait." Hans turned to Wufei. "You're gay?" "Um, actually," Wufei responded, and Duo scratched his head uncomfortably when Hans turned to him and demanded, "Did you know about this?")

Wufei lay on his back, his shirt unbuttoned and open over his chest. Duo lay half on top of him, cheek pressed to the smooth scars across his chest. He'd lost his own shirt a while back; he was pretty sure it was somewhere over by the door, but he wasn't too worried about finding it right now. Wufei ran an absent, gentle hand down his bare back in a way that made Duo's eyes fall to a lazy half-mast. He could still taste Wufei on his lips as his weeks-old meeting with Dr. Cavell and her internship proposition replayed slowly through his head. He had spent his life hollow, moving from place to place, from person to person and moment to moment, and each time his situation shifted (Solo, the Maxwell Church, Deathscythe, Vega, White Fang, Tienen, Wufei) he felt another knife go in, draining away his energy and soul, leaving another open wound to scar. Still, all of those knives, all those scars, all the years of rebuilding had brought him to this moment, to Wufei's heart beating under his ear and his hand stroking radiating warmth up his side.

"My divorce came through today," Wufei said, disrupting Duo's thoughts. "It feels odd to no longer be married."

Duo laid a kiss to Wufei's chest. "'Odd' good?"

Wufei's hand continued its slow trail down Duo's arm and side. "I've spent the last five years afraid that she would die and I'd be shipped out to fight, or that she'd come back and I'd end up being the weak one--the one who just spent the war learning to cook while she proved that I never knew anything about justice. And then the war ended and I realized I hadn't been good for anything ever. My first excursion into battle, and suddenly I became the boy who could never win. I couldn't do anything right. All those years she hated me, and I thought it was right: she was the only one who saw the failure I was, and she was the only one who survived. There were days I was ashamed I was too afraid to kill myself."

Duo squeezed Wufei where he held him, allowing his own fingers to trace the scars Wufei bore.

"I came here originally--" Wufei took a breath and seemed to change his mind. "This is my new beginning," Wufei said quietly. Duo could feel him nuzzle at his hair. "This is my chance to make a difference. I hope you know," and Wufei sounded a little awkward and paused before beginning again. "I hope you know how much you mean to me. I hope you understand... I've spent forever alone and hating myself. I never intended to... I wasn't looking for this. But when I'm with you, I start to remember that there's more to me than my failings and the things I haven't done."

"Are we having a serious conversation about our relationship?" Duo asked lazily, hands beginning to meander across Wufei's body, and laughed when Wufei pinched him.

"Shut up, I'm pouring my heart out," Wufei said, but Duo could hear the smile in his voice. "I'm trying to tell you something."

"What's that?" Duo asked, and bit Wufei just above the nipple.

Wufei's voice was breathy. "I didn't know it would be like this. I have never felt as if I truly lived inside my body until I met you." Duo turned his head, scraping his teeth along the pink of the nipple, and Wufei inhaled sharply. "I feel like--everything was purely sci--oh god--scientific until you, and you touch me and I don't even know what to do with this heat and rush that fills my body--oh god, Duo, I'm trying to tell you something, I can't talk when you--"

Duo already had one hand underneath Wufei, working below the waistband of his pants to palm his ass, while his other hand already had Wufei's zipper open. "Wu, you fill places of me I didn't even know were empty." Wufei groaned as Duo licked his nipple. "Or at least, I'd like you to."

"Can't we please have a serious conversation about our feelings?" Wufei protested weakly. "There are things you need to know--please do that again--"

"You are such a girl," Duo responded, and scraped his teeth across Wufei's nipple.

Wufei moaned lowly, and Duo knew he'd successfully tabled the conversation for now. A rush of emotion flowed over him--relief, fear, disappointment in himself, all tangled in an overwhelming surge of affection and love--and he felt safer for knowing he could put off trying to express this scary thing for a bit longer. Someday when the gnawing void was a little further away, when his past was a little less present, he'd be able to say all these things to Wufei. His head was full of disgustingly corny song lyrics, and Duo slid his fingers along the crack of Wufei's ass and grinned as Wufei dragged Duo's face up away from his nipple for a kiss.

The lights were on, so Wufei wouldn't get naked, he knew; where Duo wore his scars defiantly, Wufei's were a badge of shame. Similarly, where Wufei could put voice and name to his fears and emptiness, Duo could only cover with jokes and actions.

We're getting there, Duo thought as Wufei's lips shifted to his throat. He groaned and turned his head, working on getting Wufei's pants off as much as possible. We're getting there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The eyes are not here  
> There are no eyes here  
> In this valley of dying stars  
> In this hollow valley  
> This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
> 
> In this last of meeting places  
> We grope together  
> And avoid speech
> 
> \- from T.S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men"


End file.
